


Dragon Slayers

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Rose and Tommy, Tommy as a dad, fascists in Britain, father daughter story, fifty-thousand other tags, hideous pain of the soul, tommy and his children, utter emotional chaos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2020-11-26 21:18:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 89,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: Change is coming from all directions and Rose has a hard time keeping up. Her father is being swallowed up by politics and memories; her uncle Arthur is being ripped to pieces by heartache; women's business is abundant and complicated.Outside the family things aren't going any better... Alice, Helen and Billy are off into a world at drastic odds with Rose's own; and James has just gone completely stupid.OrThe Story of Rose in Season 5





	1. New Things

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go, here we go, here we go! Binge complete. Now for the fun part...nah, I lie, the binge was fun as well.  
Now, this will contain spoilers for S5 - for those who have self-control and haven't binged.  
Also, it will reference some stuff from Rat Catchers...so while it isn't required reading, it might certainly make some things a bit clearer.  
Now, please, enjoy!! I really hope you do.

The Scala was without a doubt the finest picture theatre in all of town. They’d a balcony with seats so fucking fluffy you could have a kip in them during the news and be all nice and rested by the time the good stuff came on. In fact, the seats on the Scala balcony had the power to instantly transport the weary to the land of nod; Helen and Alice barely had time to drape their coats over the balustrade before they were both out cold and snoring softly.

“Oy,” Rose grumbled and nudged Alice with her elbow.

“Wake me for the Marx Brothers, yea?” Alice said drowsily without opening her eyes.

“Some company you are,” Rose said.

“Five minutes…”

“What’s the point in me takin’ you to the pictures if you’re not even up for a chat? I’d be better off bringing Charlie at this rate.”

Alice opened one eye and gave Rose the kind of look a mother might give a small child nagging her for a sweetie.

“I’m knackered, Rosie,” she said.

“You’re always fucking knackered,” Rose snapped. “You both are. All the time. It’s boring-“

“Fuck off.” Alice was awake now and annoyed. “You have a go scrubbing fucking pots from the crack to the dead every bloody day and see how chatty you are on a Sunday.”

“I-“

“If we’re no longer good company,” Alice cut her off, “then bring some of your school mates, why don’t you, they’ll be better fun, eh? Not so tired from doing boring stuff like working to keep tea in the pot and the chairs under our arses. You offered, we weren’t fucking asking for your charity, were we?”

“I-“

“And if I were to sleep through the bloody film,” Alice went on, “it wouldn’t matter at any rate, would it? Because you’ve made us come and watch the same fucking thing over and over for weeks. I didn’t say anything though, did I, because you’re the one forking out your daddy’s cash for the tickets. But until your man comes on, I’m going to rest my eyes, if that’s orright with you.”

Alice slammed herself back into the plush and pleasure and closed her eyes with gusto. Rose sat for a moment, just until she could close her mouth properly.

“Alice?”

“What?” Alice snapped.

“Would you like choc-top when I wake you?”

There was the slightest twitch on the corners of Alice’s mouth, though she kept her eyes firmly shut.

“That’d be lovely,” she said. “For Helen as well.”

“Sweet dreams,” Rose said softly.

“Don’t you fall asleep yourself,” Alice yawned. “Take your notes now and leave me alone.”

“Fuck off,” Rose muttered, already digging a pencil and a crumpled wad of paper from her pocket.

MacDonald was on the screen, finishing up some type of dull announcement. Ah, shite. She’d missed too much of it, she’d no idea what he was on about. Probably something about working hours or taxes or Germany. There’d been something about ending the occupation, weeks ago now, she’d missed most of that, too. She’d caught just enough of it to know that it would be the kind of thing her father would ask her about…and that she’d have little more to offer than a cross between and cringe and a shrug.

She’d been spot on with that prediction, if nothing else.

He’d been straight into roaring and whacking the table with the flat of his hand. It’d made Charlie and Ruby jump; one of them knocked a glass of milk over when they did. Tommy brought his hand down again and milk splattered over Rose’s face like spray from the side of the road on a miserable day. She’d a plate of eggs in front of her and the impulse to hurl it towards the head of the table and see it splatter all over his spotless suit had been near uncontrollable. But she’d resisted.

It wasn’t that Rose wasn’t interested, not as such. Just the way they did the news was dull as all fuck; she’d told Tommy so, the first time he’d demanded she tell him about the state of the nation in particular and that of the world in general.

“So, my little love...” He’d been leaning back, tapping his cigarette next to his tea cup; there’d been no warning at all. “Tell me, what’s something you could do yesterday but couldn’t do today?”

“What?”

“You went to the pictures yesterday, didn’t you? Eh? _Again._”

It had been a topic of discussion, lately, the frequency of Rosie's visits to the Scala.

“Yea…”

“So, you should know then, go on.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“What film did they show?”

“The Shakedown.” She noticed much too late that there was danger in the room. It was first thing in the morning, she hadn’t expected it.

“Who’s the leading man?”

“Dunno."

“Yea, you do.”

“I-“

“Who’s the bloody leading man, Rose?”

“James Murray.”

“Ah. Very good. And the lady?”

“Barbara Kent.”

“Didn’t even have to think about it, eh?” He’d lit the cigarette and stared her down through the smoke. “So, before John Murray-“

“James.”

“Eh?”

“It’s James Murray, not John.” She couldn’t help herself; he was getting wildly annoyed, she could hear it in his every breath, and still she couldn’t help herself.

“How is it that you can remember the name of some Hollywood twat, but the news of the fuckin’ day go in one ear and out the other? How is that?”

“But-“

“You answer my question.”

Lizzie was eyeballing Rose from across the table now, shaking her head near imperceptibly. She could tell the scales were about to tip as well as Rose could; and there wasn’t any reason why Rose shouldn’t tell her father that they’d only gotten into the theatre when the news had already been over.

It wasn’t on, though, him staging the Spanish inquisition over the breakfast table.

Ignoring Lizzie’s glare, Rose looked at her father, careful the keep her face still.

“Maybe ‘cause the news are fucking boring.”

“Boring, is it?”

“Yea.”

She held his stare, even though her heart was hammering. She was vaguely aware of Charlie physically squirming in the seat next to her, tensing like he was getting ready to bolt.

“That’s a shame,” Tommy said, leaning forward slowly, grinding his cigarette out on his saucer. “But when everything comes crumbling down around your deaf ears and takes you by fucking surprise-“ his voice was rising steadily “- because you were too preoccupied with make-believe to bother with what is happening in the real world, that won’t be boring, will it, Rose?”

“Tommy…” Lizzie sounded tired and annoyed in equal measure.

“If you don’t know what’s happening, you’ll be steamrolled-“ he was shouting properly now, veins on his neck standing to attention and everything “- like a fucking ostrich…”

“What’s an fuckin’ ostrich?” Ruby whispered to Lizzie and Rose snorted a laugh despite herself.

“Are you bloody laughing?” Tommy’s roar gave way to a quiet menace that was much, much, much more alarming than any shouting could ever be.

“No,” Rose croaked. “Honest.”

“You want to keep wasting your time sitting in the dark, eating sweets and watching fucking films, at least have the sense to listen during the bloody news.”

“Orright, Christ almighty…”

“What was that?”

“Orr- yes.”

“Now, I’ll be asking. And you’ll have answers, if you know what’s good for you. D’you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t do any good ignoring what goes on until it’s too late to prepare.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now finish your breakfast.”

The eggs were cold now, but she wolfed them down regardless. Her father was smoking again, his hand on his teacup, his own food untouched.

“What was it?” Rose asked when her plate was clean and her chair pushed back.

“What?” He’d been miles away.

“What could I do yesterday but not today?”

“Rosie…” Lizzie sighed, throwing her hands up and her napkin on the table. “Just-“

“Get married,” Tommy said. “You could’ve gotten married yesterday, but you can’t today.”

Rose could feel her face getting away from her, assembling into a look of absolute exasperation on its own accord.

“D’you know why that is?”

Rose shrugged.

“They’ve increased the age of marriage. Up to what, you reckon?”

“Dunno,” Rose groaned. “Eighteen? Twenty?”

“Sixteen. D’you not think this concerns you?”

“No, not particularly.” Rose managed to keep her eyes from rolling. Just. “Why would I want to marry?”

“Girls want to get married for many reasons,” her father said darkly. “Let's ask one. How ‘bout you, Lizzie? Why’d you want to get married?”

She stood and gave him a stare, Lizzie, hard enough to match any of his. The mood in the house had been murder for the rest of the week, more so than usual.

And, of course, now a girl couldn’t even relax at the movies on a Sunday morning…or any other time. There wasn’t a pleasure in the world her father couldn’t somehow convert into work or a chore; he’d have managed to attach some type of deeper meaning to eating a bar of chocolate if he’d put his mind to it.

To her credit, over the past few months Rose had gotten quite good at predicting what he’d ask her about. She’d gotten good at taking notes, too. If she didn’t, Tommy was liable to make her sit with that week’s papers – the week’s, not just that day's – until she’d distilled the relevant information. In writing, so he could peruse it at his convenience. And woe betide thee if the spelling was off.

Rose leaned back, dug her change out of her pocket and counted. There was enough to get a bag of toffee to dress up the choc tops. She’d go now, the lines were shocking on a Sunday. It would mean missing the news entirely, but it was too late to start paying attention now, really. Anyway, it wasn’t like he _always _asked. It wasn’t like he didn’t have more important things to keep himself up at night than worrying whether or not Rose knew what international trade laws were being updated. It wasn’t like she could even be sure that he’d be in today.

She’d get a paper after, just in case. If there was enough left once she’d paid for the sweets.

#

As it were, Rose ended up getting not just choc tops and toffees, but also lemonades. Fuck the paper. She had to nudge Alice and Helen with her foot, very gently, because her arms were too full with peace offerings. They stretched and shuffled upwards in their seats, blinking in the half-light of the theatre.

“May I serve you your breakfasts, meladies?” Rose asked sheepishly.

“Don’t be a goose,” Helen yawned and relieved her of a bottle and a cone, “breakfast’s the only bloody meal they dish up themselves.”

“Yea?”

“Don’t youse do it like that?” Helen bit into the chocolate coating with a sharp little crack and rolled her eyes with pleasure.

For a moment Rose just stood slightly open mouthed, like the biggest eejit.

“Ah…no,” she said finally, feeling her shoulders and colour rise with every syllable. “They…ah…they dish that up, too.”

Alice snorted a laugh. Rose climbed over her outstretched legs and awkwardly fell into her seat. She trapped the bottles between her legs and held out at choc top. For a second she thought Alice might take it and throw it at her or, worse, not take it at all. She wouldn’t have blamed her. Instead, Alice shook her head in mock pity.

“That’s ‘cause your old man doesn’t know to run a proper bloody house,” she said, taking the choc top and taking a ruthless chomp out of it.

Rose grinned weakly and passed her a lemonade. The snowcapped peak of Paramount crackled onto the screen.

“Cheers,” Alice said with a wink and, in perfect unison, the three of them tipped their bottles and took two generous gulps.

Rose pulled a slender flask from her coat pocket and proceeded to top up each bottle with a respectable measure of gin.

“This is the life,” Helen sighed.

“Ladies of leisure,” Rose grinned.

“Ah, fuck off, Rosie.” Alice shook her head.

There was enough real disdain in her voice – at least Rose thought that disdain might be the word for it – to give rise to an uneasy feeling. For a bit.

By the time Chico and Harpo came through the revolving doors of the Hotel de Cocoanut, the three of them were leaning against each other, laughing so hard they spilled gin and lemonade on themselves. There was, perhaps, a tiny little tingle left of the burning shame – at least Rose thought that shame was the word that came closest – but no bad feeling in the world, of this Rose was sure, could withstand the divine charms of Harpo Marx and his bottomless coat pockets. Fuck bad feelings, it was her Sunday, too, after all.

#

Of course, he was in. Sunday fucking dinner. 

And of course, he did ask. 

And, of course, Rose found herself at her desk with a stack of papers. 

It had been worth it though, she figured. There was little she wouldn't be willing to endure to get Alice and Helen back for even just a small moment.

#

“Leave it on? Please?”

Rose stopped writing and pricked up her ears. Time had gotten away from her, it was dark out and next door Frances had started her nightly battle with Charlie and his bloody lamp.

“Now, Charlie-“

“Please, Frances? Please?” You could practically hear Charlie’s eyes brimming, he sounded pitiful, the ham. “It’s too dark...”

“Charlie, darling, you’ve slept with the light off since you were a wee, wee nipper.”

It was breaking Frances’ heart to deny him, Rose could tell from her tone, but she had her orders. She was a kind soul, Frances, but she was a good soldier, too.

“Rosie gets to leave hers on…”

The little bastard…Rose grinned.

“Rosie’s studying, Charles,” Frances said with merciless finality. “She’ll turn her light off once it’s her bedtime.”

There was a stunned silence. It wasn’t true. Rose knew, Frances knew and Charlie knew. Frances wasn’t in the habit of bending the truth even lightly, so for her to come out with a straight up lie was surprising enough to shut Charlie up for the moment.

The non-negotiable order to fall asleep in darkness was a ‘new thing’. It seemed like there was a ‘new thing’ every other week now, if Rose was honest. Their father was on a mission of cracking down on random specifics and laying down laws; like he was having reactions to new-found allergies.

He probably had his reasons, he always did; he just wasn’t in the habit of sharing them. You could guess, sometimes.

When he’d put the threat of withdrawing all cinematic privileges for the foreseeable future unless Rose was able to report on the news when called upon, that had been an easy one to unpack. He was a fucking MP, as bizarre as that still seemed to Rose, so it wouldn’t do for her to be politically ignorant…no matter how fucking boring it was.

The light thing though…Rose couldn’t make up her mind about it.

Perhaps her father had decided that it was time to harden Charlie up a little, teach him what things were worth being afraid of and which weren’t. That said, it was just as likely that he thought there were sharp shooters lurking out in the fields at night…although he would have insisted Rose sleep in the dark then, too, and that he didn’t do. Quite the opposite, really.

Once or twice, one of the maids had turned off Rose’s bedside lamp while she’d been asleep. Admittedly, they might have done it more often, but it had only coincided with a bad night on two occasions. So, when Rose came crashing out of bed in a tangle of sheets, _Everybody Loves my Baby_ ringing in her ears and sweat pouring down her face and back, only to find herself in the dark and completely disorientated, she’d had a bit of a moment.

That’s what her father had said to Lizzie – the first time the lights had been out - as she was trying to herd Charlie and Ruby back to their beds: “Rosie’s just having a bit of a moment, we’ll be orright. Won’t we, Rosie?”

She’d managed to nod, just, her heart still hammering like mad and her scalp tingling like she was having every louse in Birmingham over for a party. Tommy’s arms were crossed over her chest, her back pressed against his front; he’d put himself around her like an armour.

“You’re bleeding,” Lizzie said quietly.

Rose wanted to crane her head to look, but the effort was too great.

“Well, that’ll teach me to pick a fight with a warrior-girl.”

Lizzie was moving Ruby towards the door now, but Charlie wouldn’t budge.

“Go on, Charlie,” Tommy said. “It’s late.”

Charlie didn’t even look at him, he was staring at Rosie with huge, serious eyes.

“Did you have a bad dream, Rosie?” he asked.

“Yea,” she croaked.

“What was it?”

Lizzie had her hand on Charlie’s shoulder now, but neither of them were starting to strain in their chosen direction yet.

“…dragons,” Rose said softly, meeting her brother gaze and marshalling what she hoped would pass for a smile.

“Dragons?” Charlie cocked his head.

“Yea,” Rose nodded, flinching at the beginnings of a monstrous headache. “Dragons. Huge ones. Coming down over the fields with their fire scorching the earth…”

Her voice deserted her again before she could really get going, but it didn’t matter. Lizzie was tugging Charlie from the room and he let it happen. Rose slumped back against her father before they’d quite made it out of the door.

“Dragons, eh?” he murmured into her hair. “They wouldn’t dare take you on, the scaly bastards…” he relaxed his grip on her arms a little, without letting go of her. “We’ve the blood of dragon slayers, you know, Rosie. From the Strong side.”

“Yea?” she whispered.

The song was gone. Rose closed her eyes and was met only with an empty darkness.

“Used to scale the sides of mountains to find the dragons’ caves, the Strong boys,” Tommy said. “Some of their women as well. Carry blades as long as your brother and so sharp you’d cut yourself looking at them, plunge them into the soft spot between scales just above the shoulder joint. That’s were the dragon’s arteries run, only place you’re sure to kill it. They’d stand in dragon’s blood as it came showering over them and once they were bled out, they’d skin the fuckers for a pair of boots.”

“Yea?”

“On the bible, my little love.”

“You don’t believe in the bible.” Rose opened her eyes and found her breathing even and her father’s arms uncrossing.

“But I do believe in dragons.” He pushed himself to his feet and offered Rose a hand up. There was a cut above his eye and a trickle of blood down the side of his face. Tommy brought his hand up and examined his reddened fingertips. “You got me a beauty.”

“Sorry…”

“None of that, eh?” Her father bent down, retrieved her knotted sheet and shook it flat. “It happens.”

“To you as well?” 

“Once I woke up standing smack in the middle of my room with my foot on your auntie Ada’s face.”

“Oh, fuck.” Rose stared up at her father in horror. “Did you hurt her?”

For a moment he just looked at her, the rings under his eyes growing with every heartbeat.

“I stepped on her head, Rosie,” he said slowly, “of course I hurt her.”

“Did you apologise?”

“She wouldn’t let me,” her father said. “Said I couldn’t be held responsible for what I did in my sleep. Sounds fair?”

Rose nodded.

“In you get.”

She obeyed and he spread her blanket over her; it left him standing a little awkwardly beside her bed. Rose took a deep breath and made her face relax.

“I’m orright,” she said.

He cocked his head a little, just like Charlie had done earlier. Rose gave him a smile and, just like the dragons she’d conjured for her brother, it worked.

“Goodnight, Rosie.”

“’night, dad.”

And she had slept, eventually, that night and most nights after it. Whenever she started awake the light was there to assure her that the Grand Hotel and the King’s Hall and even the shipyard were far, far away; so there was no need to scream until the whole house came running.

So, the light stayed on. Which was likely as not the reason that Charlie – and often Ruby – ended up in with Rose, robbing her of whatever sleep the dreams had left her.

She didn’t mind though, not really; it felt like they were dogs, all three of them. The whole Shelby litter, curled around each other, watched over by growling dogs and snarling bitches, ready to tear anyone to shreds, who dared to come near them. 


	2. A Silver Bentley in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose finds unexpected beauty on a rainy afternoon.

Afternoons had become difficult to fill. It had been alright up until school let out in August, because even though Rose was no longer going to the school in Saltley with her mates – “It won’t do, Rosie,” her father had announced after she’d been back there for a year. “Higher stakes, higher standards.” – they’d still meet up after. Now that they were working though, fuck, it left Rose floating.

She could have gotten the driver to pick her up and bring her home, but the thought of spending every afternoon at the big house…nah. Not if she could help it. She went to the pictures more than was decent; and if she couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there on her own, she went drifting until she found kin with time on their hands.

Which was how she ended up at Polly’s one gloomy Wednesday afternoon, dropping in for a last cuppa before her aunt was off to Monte bloody Carlo, of all the places..

“I wouldn’t, if I was you.”

Rose, hand still on the garden gate, turned around and very nearly fainted. Leaning out of the driver’s side window of a Bentley parked not three steps from her was Bonnie Gold. Rose could feel her lips parting with what was surely an idiotic grin and desperately tried to force her mouth into a serious-yet-casual shape. Bonnie smiled, unselfconscious and obscenely beautiful. Alice always insisted that men couldn’t be beautiful, they could be handsome at best; but she was dead wrong. Bonnie Gold was beautiful. The way a wild horse was beautiful. The way a summer storm was beautiful.

#

Badgering Tommy into submission was nearly impossible, Rose had managed it on only two or three occasions. You had to be lucky, get all the contributing factors just right, and be persistent without enraging him.

In the case of Bonnie Gold versus Pete Gibbons, Rose’s success was partly due to the fight being scheduled for the evening of her fourteenth birthday; and even more so to the fact that her father and Lizzie had an impossibly important dinner to attend. And, admittedly, Rose’s delivery had been excellent. 

“It’s unlucky, Rosie,” Tommy had said with a small shrug after he’d announced the double booking. “But there’s nothing for it, eh?”

“That’s okay.” Rose had smiled at him and savoured the tiny flash of surprise he couldn’t rein in. “We’re still breakin’ even.”

“How so?”

“You’ll have been there for seven out of fourteen,” she said.

“Ten,” he countered. “You were four when we came back.”

“True,” Rose nodded. “But for me ninth you were on your honeymoon and I had me eleventh at the Grand Hotel. So that’s six, not counting the one coming up.”

She hadn’t been whingeing, she hadn’t even been remotely snarky. It had been a simple presentation of facts. That he’d been just at the right point of his evening rituals – a good bit into the large bottle and only a touch into the small one – and the facts had managed to get to the right place inside him, that had been chance. He would have never admitted that he felt bad, horrible even, but the fact that he gave Rose permission to go and see her first bout was all the proof she needed. 

In the end, it had been agreed that Finn would take her and see her home afterwards. Tommy spent a good five minutes drilling a staggering number of rules into them. No drink, not in the pub before and not in the dancehall after, no delays on the way home, no speaking to strangers, no betting…but eventually, he’d released his hold on the door of Finn’s car and they’d rumbled off towards Birmingham and Rose’s first proper night out. She’d had two worthy slugs of whiskey by the time they passed the big trees, leaning out of the window into the freezing air and yelling in triumph.

He’d taken her all through the back, Finn had, and brought her into the room where they were getting Bonnie wrapped and ready. He’d been shirtless and serious and cracking his neck to loosen it up; and Rose was quite literally stunned by just how gorgeous he was. 

“How’s Rosie?”

Rose had to put a hand on the wall to keep herself from falling over. The whiskey had gone to her head, true, but the surprise topped it easily. They’d met before, Rose and Bonnie, once of twice, only ever very briefly and when Rose had been much younger. That he recognised her, that he knew her name, gave Rose an odd buzzing feeling. She wasn’t sure whether she cared for it.

“Fourteen today, our Ro,” Finn announced, throwing his arm around her shoulder.

“_Tatcho_?” Bonnie smirked.

“_’va_,” Rose said, keeping her eyes somewhere near his shoes, uncertain why she felt so embarrassed.

Finn, who’d been bumping Tokyo in pretty regular intervals since they’d hit the city limits, nudged Rose a step closer towards Bonnie Gold.

“She’ll share her birthday luck with you, won’t you, Ro?”

Had it been possible to ignite with shame, Rose might have gone up in flames then and there. But then, just as she was about to shrug Finn’s hand off and back towards the exit, something – in all probability the whiskey – reminded her that letting Finn get the better of her was not an option.

“Don’t be a twat, Finny,” she said sweetly. “Bonnie’s no need for luck, do you, Bonnie?”

He’d grinned and gone back to rolling his shoulders and shaking out his arms; and Rose had followed Finn to seats right by the ring, where she proceeded the scream herself hoarse until Bonnie Gold sent the Gibbons fella flying with a punch that might have killed a horse.

She’d seen him in passing since, when she’d been at the office to visit Arthur and Finn; and he’d been to the big house once, to collect a horse. Supposedly.

Rose knew she was being ridiculous, if not downright pathetic. He was twenty at the very least, he was fucking ancient. They hadn’t really ever talked, not about anything worth talking about, and they probably wouldn’t ever. She found her mind conjuring him at strange times regardless.

#

And now, there he was.

“How’s Rosie?” he asked.

“Grand,” she said with a strange squeak in her voice. “How’s yourself?”

He shrugged and his grin went a little sideways.

“Waiting,” he said.

“Are they…” Rose nodded towards the house and raised an eyebrow.

“Farewelling,” Bonnie sighed. “Before the queen’s grand tour. Enter at your own risk.”

“I’ll wait.” Slowly and (hopefully) nonchalantly, Rose ambled over and leaned against the side of the car. “How’s the ring?” 

“Torn me shoulder,” Bonnie sighed. “No getting back in for another month or so.”

“Sorry to hear.”

“It’s not so bad.” He leaned back in the seat and smiled some more. “We’re goin’ up country for some peace and quiet.”

“That’s lovely,” Rose said, wanting to whack herself for coming out with something this lame.

So, there they were. One in the car, one out, with very little else to say. Just before the silence became unbearably awkward it started to drizzle. Bonnie leaned over and opened the passenger door.

“We’ll go for a spin, will we?”

Rose couldn’t quite believe her ears.

“What? In this? Now?”

“No,” Bonnie said gravely. “In a billy cart. Next summer.”

Rose blushed to the roots of her hair and got into the car with as much dignity as she had left. The car rumbled to life and they set off for a generous round of the block. They didn’t talk much, not at all really; but it was nice, watching the rain and the houses pass by and the lights come on…and shooting sideways glances at Bonnie at the wheel.

Rose wondered if this was what it was like for Lizzie, driving with Rose’s father, this odd feeling of having a man doing you a service.

By the third corner Rose was lost in the fantasy of being on the way back to a house of their own, with trophy belts hanging over the mantle and freshly killed rabbits dangling over the bath. Of drinking whiskey before the fire, Bonnie’s curly head resting in her lap as she read him the paper and laughing at the madness of the world together.

Of course, when they got back onto Pol’s street and spotted the hatted form of Mister Gold leaning against the garden wall, it was enough to shatter Rose’s late afternoon dream into a million little pieces. He was twisting his soaked moustache, it was properly bucketing down now.

The motor was barely turned off when Mister Gold was at Bonnie’s window.

“There’s an umbrella by the door.”

Bonnie got out and jogged up the garden path, leaving Rose alone and with Mister Gold’s piercing stare trained on her.

“_Latcho kodive_, Mister Gold,” she said, valiantly attempting a polite smile.

The water was dripping off his hat, his face still as rock worn smooth by the waterfall.

“A girl who’s kin to greats like Polly Gray should know better than this,” he said.

He was old school, Mister Gold, and a bit mad; and that was never a good combination. Rose could feel her cheeks burning so hot, she might have boiled the rain.

“We only-“

“- went for a drive in the rain in a shiny silver Bentley.” Mister Gold sounded almost wistful. “I know, Miss Shelby, I know. But, you see, what one does often carries less weight than what one appears to have done.”

Bonnie was back, the unopened umbrella in hand. Mister Gold took it from him, walked around the car and opened first the umbrella, then Rose’s door.

“If I may, Miss Shelby.”

He escorted her up to the door, holding the umbrella over her while he himself walked in the rain. Polly was leaning in the doorframe, wrapped in the black and gold fabric of her robe, a smile playing around a glowing cigarette.

“The last of the true gentlemen,” she purred.

“Not quite the very last,” Mister Gold purred back. “My boy’s a gentleman to the very core, much more so than me.”

“He’s only young,” Pol’s smile deepened, “there’s still hope for him.”

Mister Gold tipped his hat and was off. Rose and her aunt watched him walk through the rain until he disappeared into the Bentley.

“Cuppa tea, Rosie?” Pol asked when the car started up and she moved to close the door.

“Yea, please.”

There were tea things by the sofa, set out for two, untouched. Pol lowered herself onto the sofa with the grace and calm of a large cat. She looked utterly delighted, she was practically glowing.

“He’s a very beautiful boy, Bonnie Gold,” she said, shooting Rose an expectant look.

“We only went for a drive,” Rose groaned. “He offered.”

“Did he now?”

“Yea.” Rose nodded. “It would’ve been rude not to.”

“Keep your hair on, sweetheart,” Pol smiled. “No one’s accusing you of besmirching the family honour.”

“Mister Gold might have been.”

“Men have their ideas…” Pol poured the tea, added some whiskey to her own and dipped a lump of sugar, watching it turn golden. “And our men even more so than the gadjes. But he was lookin’ out for your interests, Rosie, even though it was his own flesh and blood in the car with you. Because no matter how the story goes, at the end it’s always the girl gets ruined.”

“We went once round the block.” Rose’s teacup was suspended halfway between her saucer and her mouth.

“You’re not stupid,” Polly said. “You know very well that if people chose to talk, by the end of the day Bonnie Gold wouldn’t have been riding the car with you in it, but you inside the car. Ruins a girl without her having to do a thing.”

“I’m tellin’ you-“

“I know,” Pol interrupted patiently. “And I believe you. Not that I could blame you. But you’re too smart for that, I know. And that’s a good thing, Rosie. You’ve all the time in the world. You’re in a place when a smile across the room is as good as anything a man might do to pleasure a woman. Enjoy it, eh?”

“You just said I’ll be ruined even for not doin’ anything,” Rose pointed out.

“That’s just part of the fun.” Pol raised her cup to her mouth and an eyebrow at Rose. “The thrill of beauty and the thrill of breaking the rules a little. To prove to yourself that you’re not afraid.”

Rose sipped her tea.

“Afraid of what?”

“Of men, whether they’re your kin or strangers.”

“Why would I be afraid of them?”

“Because you can never know a strangers intention, you’ll be lucky if you know your own,” Pol said. “As for kin…the honour of daughters, sisters, wives and mothers has always outweighed any man’s sense of his own honour.”

Rose let herself sink deep into the sofa and sighed deeply.

“It’s not bloody fair, is it, Pol?”

“Don’t start,” Pol smirked. “You’re too smart for that as well. We bend with the wind and we rise again when the storm has passed, eh? So, you’ve got to do the right thing, mind your manners and watch your step and all of that, sweetheart, but I want you to try and remember that you never have to be ashamed for wanting something. No matter what the men folk tell you, a girl can bloody dream so long as she knows she’s dreaming, orright?”

Polly stretched out, put her feet up next to the tea things, lit a cigarette and gave Rose a wink.

“Yea, orright, Pol.”

Rose grinned and put her feet up on the other side of the pot, the rumble of the silver Bentley in the rain warming her from the inside out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tatcho? - True?
> 
> Latcho ko-dive - Good afternoon


	3. Good Times

“Rosie…”

Charlie was digging his finger into her side, his mouth close so close to her ear she could feel his breath tickling the depth of it. She opened one eye and rolled it towards him. There was something heavy on her back, Ruby’s head most likely. There was the slightest bit of dawn coming through the crack in the curtains, mingling with the light from her lamp.

“What, Charles?” she groaned.

“Emergency!” Charlie yelled.

“Ah, fuck…”

Rose propped herself up on her elbows and nudged Ruby off her. She squawked and sat up like a jack-in-the-box.

“Emergency, Ruby!” Charlie shouted.

Ruby’s sleepy face broke into a huge grin and she jumped off the bed. Rose swung her legs out and ten seconds later they were running along the corridor, headed for the spare room at the far end. Charlie was in the lead, Rose was pulling Ruby along by the hand.

“Faster, Rubes,” she urged in a low voice. “Fast as you can, eh, go on.”

Ruby sped up to the best of her ability. Charlie had the door open for them and closed it almost soundlessly once they were all in.

“Key,” Rose ordered, already opening the window and craning her head to check whether the coast was clear.

Charlie locked the door and stuffed the key into the breast pocket of his pajamas.

“Check,” he whispered breathlessly.

Rose stepped onto the windowsill and lowered herself onto the roof of the coach house below. She braced her bare feet against the dewy roof tiles; by the time she turned to face the window, Charlie had already boosted Ruby up onto the sill. Ruby held out her arms and let Rose lower her onto the roof, clambering up on her back like a spider. Charlie followed them out and pulled the window closed behind him.

Silently the slid down the slope of the roof, until Rose and Charlie could wedge their feet into the drainpipe and edge sideways towards the low point where the coach house met the tool shed. As low as the shed was, it was still a drop of a over six feet, so Rose sat Ruby down on the roof and jumped off on her own, landing in a low crouch.

It was early, but not too early for the stable crew to be up and about, but she couldn’t spot a soul. Rose whistled and Charlie let himself down, holding onto the edge of the roof until his feet were on Rose’s shoulders.

“Ready,” he whispered to Ruby.

Their little sister climbed on down, using them as a ladder; and once she was safely on the ground, Charlie sat down on Rose’s shoulders and she bent over until his feet touched the ground.

“Run,” Rose hissed.

They sprinted towards the back of the stable, where the bike was leaning against the wall. Rose swung a leg over and hoisted Ruby onto the handle bars. Once she was on, her feet spread wide to keep away from the spokes, Charlie jumped onto the seat and Rose kicked off, pedaling while standing, Charlie’s arms holding loosely onto the sides of her night dress. They were through the gates and onto the road in a flash.

They only went as far as the crossing about five minutes down the road; they all knew they could make it to the closest neighbours within a quarter of an hour if Rose really stepped on it.

“Was that good, Rosie?” Ruby asked.

“It was,” she said. “Probably the quickest one yet, eh? Great stuff, both of you, really great stuff.”

Charlie grinned and hopped off, and Rose started to wheel the bike back towards the big house.

“Did I surprise you?” Charlie asked.

“You did, yea.”

“Just like a real emergency,” Charlie beamed. “Because they always surprise you, don’t they, Rosie?”

“That they do,” Rose said, feeling the mud seep between her bare toes. “That’s why you’ve got to have a plan.”

“We’ve a plan,” Ruby said grandly.

“Loads of plans,” Charlie chimed in. “All the way through to ‘D’.”

“And why’s that?” Rose prompted.

“Better safe than sorry,” her brother and sister chorused obediently.

They put the bike back behind the stable and slipped in through the delivery entrance.

“Go up to bed,” Rose whispered. “Frances and Lizzie will be up to wake youse in a minute, to be sure.”

“Can we play again?” Charlie asked.

“When there’s another emergency, eh?” Rose winked at him.

Charlie set off towards the stairs but Ruby was frozen at the kitchen window, frowning deeply.

“What’s up, Rubes?” Rose asked.

“Daddy’s home,” Ruby whispered.

Rose stepped up to the window and squinted outside. Over the field round the back, a rider was approaching. He didn’t go out at night very often anymore, their father, but Rose suspected this was probably because he spend his nights at the London apartment more often than not. Maybe he went out when he was there as well, to find himself a spot under a bridge to make a fire to stare into. She’d no way of knowing for sure, but it seemed possible enough.

“You go up,” she told Ruby. “I’ll go say good morning.”

Ruby looked up at her uncertainly.

“Don’t worry,” Rose said, already stepping into a pair of boots waiting by the door for someone to polish them.

“What if-“

“If he’s in a mood, I’ll feed him some sugar,” Rose interrupted. “It works with the horses, doesn’t it? No, go up.”

Ruby went, albeit very slowly, and once Rose was sure she was on her way up towards her room, she stepped back out into the cool morning and made for the stable.

#

“You’re up early.”

Rose looked up innocently, the big brown’s nose nestled into her palm, licking off the last remnants of its breakfast treat.

“So are you,” she said.

Her father dismounted and patted his horse’s flank. He looked like he’d been scrubbed with rocks and river water, leaving his skin pale and thin.

“Orright?”

“Yea, my little love,” he said. “You?”

“Yea…” Rose cocked her head at him, deciding to take a bit of a chance. “D’you want to go for another ride?”

“I’ve calls. You’ve school.” Tommy slung the reins over the horse’s head and led it towards an empty box. “We’ll go for a bit of drive later on though, eh?”

“Who’s _we_?” Rose asked suspiciously. “A drive to where?”

“Lickey Hills,” her father’s voice drifted from the box. “The lot of us. Pick you after school for a family outing.”

“Why?”

“ ‘cause that’s what families do.” She could hear him rustling with the feedbag. “Isn’t it?”

“Yea,” Rose said, giving the big brown a final pat. “Are we bringin’ a picnic?”

Tommy’s head appeared over the top of the box, an expression on his face like she’d suggested they chop off their own fingers for a laugh.

“What?” Rose asked. “It’s what families do, isn’t it?”

It was rare to see Tommy searching for words, his mouth every so slightly open and his eyes narrowing in slow motion. Rose managed to keep her face straight for the better part of thirty seconds, biting the insides of her cheeks, before she broke down in giggles.

“You’re a fuckin’ goose…” He was shaking his head, but she could see that something had lifted, for the moment, you could tell from his shoulders.

“Can we get a badminton set as well?” Rose could barely get the words out, she’d given herself the hiccups.

Her father closed his eyes for a moment.

“Croquet, perhaps?” he suggested.

Rose laughed so hard at this, she very nearly started crying.

“Take an easel along, whilst we’re at it, eh?” Tommy was dreadfully close to a smile now. “Lizzie can paint the panorama while you and our Ruby make daisy chains.”

“You’ll bring a book to read,” Rose wheezed, “on the picnic rug.”

“Yea,” her father said drily. “Of poetry.”

“And…and…and…” Rose had to sit down on a bale of hay, she’d a stitch like she’d run for miles, “…Charlie’ll play the…the…”

“…the fuckin’ violin,” Tommy finished for her and, for the briefest moment, there was a flash of teeth. “Christ alive…”

By the time Rose had stopped laughing, her breathing still heavy from the sheer exertion of it, he was sitting on the bale next to her, rolling a cigarette between his fingers.

“Burst anything?” he asked when she looked over, wiping her eyes.

“Probably,” she said.

She leaned back against the wall and watched her father smoke, his shoulders still relaxed. He turned his head a bit and studied her face for a while.

“Fuckin’ ridiculous, eh, Rosie?”

“Desperate.”

“Come on…” He took a deep drag and crushed the butt underfoot, stood and offered her a hand up. “You keep the littluns amused til it’s time for breakfast, orright?”

“We’ll have a game of cribbage-“

“Don’t you start again.”

He put his arm round her shoulder and gave her something between a squeeze and a shake. Rose folded her own arm up and patted him somewhere in the centre of his back. It was all rather awkward, like a pair of donkeys trying to dance the foxtrot.

“Orright, off you go,” Tommy finally announced, rescuing the both of them. “I’ll see you in a bit, eh?”

“Yea, orright.”

She sauntered off towards the big house, unsure whether the day was on the up or if they’d used up their good time allowance in its first hour. It could go either way, the mathematics were unclear.

#

As it turned out, Rose’s calculations had been on the wrong scale entirely. One didn’t start each day with a fresh supply of good times. It was much more likely that the good time allowance was meted out monthly…or annually…or perhaps there was just one big lump of it that you got as a gift on your very first birthday. The stuff came to intricately wrapped you’d never even know you were on the verge of running out.

They’d come to get her after school as promised. The car idling on the curb with all four of them in the back, like something from a fucking storybook. True, her father had moved to sit up next to the driver to make room for Rose and spent the drive smoking and rifling through papers; but as then he’d sent the driver off with instructions to return the next day at noon. There’d been a fire and a pair of rabbits and Rose had fallen asleep in the vardo to the low rumbling of Johnny Dog’s voice and Charlie and Ruby’s even breathing on either side of her.

Sleep had been deep and dreamless and only ended when Charlie rolled over, pressing his knee into Rose’s bladder something shocking. She disentangled herself and silently climbed over her sleeping siblings, easing the door open and stepping outside.

Undone bootlaces whipping the ground, she jogged off to get some distance; you couldn’t just go pissing all over the camp after all.

Rose rounded a rocky corner and froze. The horse was hooded like an executioner, but it was her father who was aiming the gun. She barely had time to comprehend what she was seeing before a gunshot ripped through the early morning silence.

The horse cried out and reared up and, for the eternal seconds it took for it to die and come crashing to the ground, her father’s gun was right up to his temple.

Rose’s entire body tensed, getting ready to sprint towards him without her say so; her lungs were drawing breath to scream. To scream and scream and never stop.

Tommy dropped his arm and Rose threw herself backwards and out of sight. She lost her footing, scrambled to remain upright and stumbled for the camp as fast as her loose shoes would allow.

Johnny Dogs was feeding the fire.

“Mornin’, Rosie-girl,” he said, his voice cracking with the earliness of it all.

There were so many things struggling to make their way out of Rose’s mouth, they all got wedged and stuck.

“Orright there?” Johnny Dogs frowned up at her. “You’re white as a sheet.”

He’d been about to shoot himself. The realization slammed itself down in the middle of the whirlwind inside Rose’s head and brought everything else to a halt. She sat down heavily on one of the chairs by the fire; only to jump back up as soon as her arse touched the seat, suddenly terrified that there’d be a second gunshot any second.

“What’s wrong?” Johnny Dogs demanded.

“I…uh…” She didn’t know where to start. “He…”

He put it together on his own, Johnny Dogs, probably because he was waking up himself and he only now noticed the direction she’d come from.

“You’ve never seen a horse put down before, Rosie?” he asked.

“No...”

“Sometimes it can’t be helped.”

“Yea, I know…but he-“

Johnny Dogs’ gaze wandered to somewhere behind them.

“Mornin’, Tom,” he called out. “Now, listen here, chavi,” he continued in a low voice. “He insisted on bein’ the one to do the job, but this sort of thing bothers him. So, don’t make fuss, eh?”

“But he-“

“He’s got it hard enough.” Johnny Dogs’ tone left no room for argument. “_Razumiv_?”

“Yea.”

“Good girl.”

There was a crunch of gravel and a moment later her father was there by the fire, shielding the flame of his lighter from the wind with his hands as he lit a cigarette.

“Orright, Rosie?”

“Grand,” she said, surprised at how normal she managed to sound. “Yourself?”

“Top of the world.”

By the time Ruby and Charlie came tumbling out of the vardo, dragging Lizzie out with them, the tea was brewed, the bread was frying and Rose’s mind was made up to keep what she’d seen to herself. She wouldn’t have known whom to tell, anyway, or what exactly to tell them, because nothing had happened, had it. Something that didn’t happen might as well be nothing; even if it had very nearly come to pass. There was no sense in doing things by half – her father had told her so too many times to keep count – if you didn’t see something through to the end, you weren’t doing it at all. You were just doing nothing. Nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Razumiv? - understand?


	4. Words

The driver had come back a little while ago, but Tommy was gone, so there was nothing to do but wait. They were letting Ruby served them invisible tea by what remained of the fire, Rose and Charlie. Ruby was chattering away delightedly, Rose had no idea what about, she was miles away; so long as she sat and took the empty cups when they were offered her sister was happy.

Johnny Dogs was handing out shovels and picks to his lads, starting to dig a hole for the horse. They’d brought it over from where it had been killed and wrapped it in canvas; it looked like a gigantic ham three weeks before Christmas.

Lizzie had told Charlie and Ruby that the horse had died in the night. Charlie’d cried; it was orright because Tommy had already set off to make a call.

“Now, Charlie-boy, no bawlin’ allowed,” Johnny Dogs had growled, quick to pick up Tommy’s slack no matter what it was; and then, in passing, he’d patted Rose on the shoulder. A bit of praise for keeping her eyes dry and her mouth shut. She’d been pleased for a second, but it had turned to a sick sort of feeling within a heartbeat. It was enough to make a girl want to burn something to the ground.

Her brother had taken note and pulled himself to gather pretty quickly; even if he was now watching the men start work on the grave with a rather glum expression. Rose looked over at Charlie and, as she did, a change came over his face. He frowned, first slightly then very deeply indeed, and his mouth went from grimly set to a perfect circle to a thin, quivering line. His head whipped around and he stared at Rose with stormy eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“Is that true?” Charlie demanded.

“Is what true?” Rose blinked.

“What he said?”

“Who? What?” She’d not heard anything over the gentle crashing of waves of her own blood, washing up against the inside of her.

“Johnny Dogs,” Charlie said shakily. “He said our dad _sploggered_ the _grai._”

Ah, fuck. Rose missed a beat, one too many for Charlie.

“He did, didn’t he?” he shouted.

“Yea,” Rose admitted. “But, listen, Charlie, it was really, really quick-“

“Did you watch?” Charlie stared at her in absolute horror for a moment before he stormed off towards the vardo.

Rose watched him slam the door as best as he could, it didn’t lend itself to being slammed shut, and closed her eyes. Fuck this. There had to be a better way to spend your Tuesday morning, even going to bloody school would have beaten this.

“Rosie?” Ruby was tugging on her sleeve.

“Yes, Rubes?” Rose asked wearily.

“What does splog-splegg-“ She couldn’t get it out. “What’s it mean, what Charlie said?”

“It means our dad shot the horse.” There wasn’t any point in lying, Charlie would’ve told her eventually.

“Where?”

Rose opened her eyes and looked down at her little sister. Ruby was perfectly calm and perfectly serious.

“In the head,” she said slowly. “Right between the eyes.”

“Huh.”

In the vardo, Charlie had started to cry again; the wind was carrying his sobs over to Rose and Ruby’s little tea party. Ruby took an abandoned toy horse of Charlie’s and let it trot around the cups.

“Charlie’s sad,” she said.

“Yea, well, I know.” Rose watched as Lizzie approached the wagon carefully. “But our dad’s sad as well, Ruby. He’ll be sadder still he hears any crying.”

“He’ll shout.”

“Look, some people shout when they’re sad, orright?” Rose rubbed a hand over her face. “Just…ah, bloody hell…”

Lizzie was leaning against the vardo now, her lips moving as she tried to talk Charlie down. It didn’t look like she was having any success.

“Just do my favour, Rubes, eh? When he comes back, can you be nice to him? And can you not ask him about the horse?”

Ruby was moving the horse about with such absolute concentration, Rose thought for a moment that her sister hadn’t caught a word of what she had said. But then, Ruby looked up and stared at Rose silently for a moment, with that oddly serious face she always wore when thinking hard.

“Orright,” she finally said.

Lizzie was looking over at them now, motioning for Rose to come over. Charlie had stopped crying, or at least crying audibly.

“Will you have a go talking to him?” Lizzie asked quietly.

Rose puffed out her cheeks and let the air escape slowly.

“He’s mad as hell,” she pointed out.

“And that’s fine.” Lizzie let her eyes wander along the top end of the cliff, Rose imagined she was listening out for hoofbeats. “He’s allowed to be mad and upset and all the rest of it, so long as he gets in the car when it’s time to go.”

Lizzie had a point, Rose knew. Charlie having a cry over the horse wasn’t a problem, not a big one at any rate; even Charlie having a go at their father for shooting it would probably be somewhat manageable. But Charlie refusing to get into the car was an different matter entirely. It was exactly the sort of thing that would drive Tommy spare. Rose couldn’t quite work out why, but there seemed to be something about disobedience of the body that made it a far greater insult to his authority than disobedience of the mind.

_I can’t tell you what to think, but I can tell you what to do._

It was a bit like in the military, Rose supposed. Generals gave orders and so long as they were carried out they probably didn’t give two fucks if the soldiers felt that wrong decisions were being made. They could think what they liked, the soldiers, they could curse their superiors to the moon and back, they could rage inside at the injustice of having to carry out the dirty work; they could do all these things so long as they did what they were told.

Joy wasn’t required, not even the pretense of joy; the only thing that was insisted upon was that you did as you were told.

Rose sat down on the steps and leaned her back against the door. Lizzie was wandering off to where Ruby was playing. It was hard to make out what Ruby was doing, exactly, but it looked an awful lot like she was shooting the little horse with one of Charlie’s toy guns. Fuck sakes. Rose started to raise her eyes to the heavens but they snagged on a horseman up on the ridge. Grand.

“Charlie?” There was no answer. “Charlie, dad’s comin’ back. Don’t be a twat.”

Nothin’.

“Fuckin’ fine,” Rose snapped. “But you’re fuckin’ dealing with it when it goes wrong.”

#

Ruby, bless her, she ran right at their father, arms wide. Rose watched him pick her up and carry her, as far as Lizzie at least.

“Where’s Charles?”

Rose got off the stairs and slowly moved over towards the digging.

“Charlie, get out here now. Let’s get it done.”

Nothing. Fuck it.

Rose stepped over a rock and slid down into the grave. Johnny Dogs raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes in response. Charlie was on his own with this one, she wasn’t going to get amongst it. There had probably been a time when she, too, would have raged against the shooting of a horse, when death had seemed like a thing that should never happen to anyone, but that time was long gone. He was welcome to shoot a horse a day, her father, so long as he kept his gun away from other targets.

“No!” Charlie’s voice drifted down into the hole. “It’s what you do…”

There was a bird circling, all on its own, looking down at the little people below. It was probably wondering how they could stand it, being on the ground all the time, being slow to travel and stuck with the roads. Rose scooted over and up, until she could rest her hand on the damp canvas shrouding the horse’s body.

“Goodbye to all care and all sorrow…” She was whispering rather than singing really, but she was sure the horse wouldn’t mind. “I’m pushin’ the blues out of my way…I’m all wrapped up in sunshine…underneath a sky of blue…’cause I’m sailin’ on a sunbeam-“

Her father appeared on the edge of the grave above her. He looked like he was about to take flight, using his coat as a pair of wings.

“And what are you doin’, eh?” he asked.

“Nothin’…” Rose peered up at him cautiously. “Singin’.”

“For the dead?”

“Yea.”

He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, so Rose couldn’t see his eyes anymore.

“Come on,” he finally said hoarsely. “Come on, out you get.”

Slowly, Rose took her hand off the horse and climbed up to stand next to her father. By the time the lads had shoved the body down into its final resting place, Ruby was there with them, too, holding a flower. Rose felt something brush her fingers and the next moment, her whole hand was inside Tommy’s. She glanced over and saw him holding onto Ruby on his other side.

“Dangerous, my beautiful horse.”

Rose bowed her head. The shroud had slipped a bit when they pushed Dangerous into the hole. There were streaks of dirt and rock dust on its exposed hind leg.

“Too wild to race. Wouldn’t take the reins or the whip. Should’ve been a war horse.”

His hand was tightening around hers, he was nearly hurting her; she wondered if he was doing the same on Ruby’s side.

“Got tired of the pasture. Couldn’t stick the peace and the quiet.”

Everything inside Rose started churning. 

“Gave up on life and is now free.”

The horse. He was talking about the horse.

“In the bleak-“ her father broke off, let go off their hands and for a long moment everything was still.

“You cryin’?”

Rose wasn’t sure whether Ruby was asking her or their father; in any case, she was crying too much to even consider answering. It was lucky that her tears were silent, but they were fairly streaming down her face, blurring her vision and robbing her off her voice. For lack of better ideas, Rose stayed where she was – head bowed, eyes on the recently deceased – until her father and sister had drifted away.

Rose couldn’t get a breath deep enough to relax. It would pass. Her boots, so close to the edge of the grave, seemed to be miles away. Rose tried to pinch herself in the leg to remind herself where it was, but her hands wouldn’t obey. It would pass. They hung uselessly by her sides, her arms and hands and ten pointless fingers. Rose was straining for air now, her nose and mouth full of tears. It wasn’t fucking passing.

She closed her eyes and was filled instantly with the roaring of her blood and the pounding of her heart, like she was going to explode.

This wasn’t new, she reminded herself. It was horrible, but it wasn’t new. It was the same thing that happened when she had bad dreams, the same thing. Rose wanted to open her eyes back up and found that she couldn’t.

You had to open your eyes and see what was really there. Tommy had explained this – well, he’d held her down and shouted it over her hissing and screeching – when Rose started having her moments.

“It’s like you’re telling yourself a story but you don’t know you’re doing it,” he’d said later, when Rose was feeling like a puddle that’d been jumped into once too often. “You’re a great one for the stories, aren’t you? Eh? Next time this comes for you, you just make up something nice and hold on until it’s over.”

It was easier said than done, bloody hell. Rose ground her teeth so hard it hurt, scouring her fizzing mind for something nice.

Bonnie Gold floated up, his smiling face dancing in between the bright spots of light spinning beneath her eyelids, making her dizzy. But then his eyebrow burst open from a punch and Mister Gold came running, his gun cocked and the crowds were roaring…Rose shook her head furiously, until a top hat appeared on Bonnie’s head. Slowly, she watched the colour drain from him and his face widen and a giant overcoat sprouting around him like something from the sea. She turned him into Harpo Marx, grinning like a child and holding out a cup and saucer he’d fished from his pocket. They’d go sauntering down a boulevard, Harpo and Rose, once she’d had her tea – or coffee…Americans drank coffee – a boulevard lined with palm trees, pickpocketing strangers and tasting salt and oranges in the air.

She could breathe more easily now. There was no trace of orange or salt, she could smell only rain and dirt and damp, dead horse, but it was good to get any air, she wasn’t picky. Her fingers were starting to tingle and she could feel her legs shaking.

She sank down until she was safely sitting on the ground, her legs drawn up and her head on her knees. In and out, in and out, until she was inflated and could fly away. The pounding in her ears was thinning out, allowing different sounds to creep in.

“…no one ever fuckin’ listens…”

Rose lifted her head and pointed her bleary gaze towards the camp. Her uncle Arthur was there, much to her surprise, and Ruby pressed close to Lizzie’s legs and Johnny Dogs. And all of the were keeping weary eyes on her father, who was absolutely losing his shite. Unsteadily, Rose got to her feet and stumbled over towards them.

“What’s goin’ on?”

Her father snatched a newspaper of Lizzie – where had the fuckin’ newspaper come from? – and marched off towards the horses; he was rattling off instruction like he was in a race against himself, trying to get it all out before his mind took him elsewhere.

“Where’re you going?” Rose sped up, trailing him, jostling for space with her uncle Arthur.

Tommy was up on the horse now; he was looking down at them, but Rose sensed that he could see only his brother.

“Arthur-“ He looked like a hunted hare, like he couldn’t wait to be away from them. “You tell my boy that, sometimes, death is a kindness.”

Her uncle took a step back at this, but Rose launched herself forward and twisted both hands into the fabric of her father’s trouser leg. He flinched, stared at her in complete confusion and tried to pull away; but she wasn’t letting go, he’d have to shoot her to make her let go.

“Get off,” he snapped.

“Where are you goin’?” Rose demanded.

“Rosïe, let go.”

“No.” She forbade herself to blink, staring up at him. His jaw was tightening to the point of bones piercing the skin.

“Rose…” There was a threat, a real menace in his tone, but Rose did not let go.

“Promise you’ll come back.”

“What else would I do?” her father asked flatly.

“Swear,” Rose ordered.

“For fuck’s sake-“

“Not that kind of swearing…”

Tommy softened a little at that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“For a fact?”

She could feel her eyes welling up again. Tommy sighed.

“For a fuckin’ fact, Rosie.”

She let go and he turned the horse around, taking off like he was at the track. Rose stared after him, watching him go and disappear, kept staring until her uncle Arthur put a heavy hand on her shoulder and marched her to the car.

She’d see him tomorrow… Rose leaned her head against the cool of the window and breathed. He’d said. He was coming back tomorrow. She knew because he’d said. He’d fuckin’ said and she’d fuckin’ believe him. Even if it was hard to do. Even if it was downright stupid.

He was coming back. Tomorrow. For a fucking fact.


	5. Basic Economics

Arthur dropped them off at the Midland Hotel. There was nothing to do but sit around, waiting for a sleepless night and pretending that Tommy returning was definite; so Rose went off in search of distraction. You had to keep busy, find things to do to keep the dark corners of your mind at bay; that had been not just her father’s advice but Polly’s as well.

Alice and Helen were completely unavailable during the week, but James and Billy could be tracked down for a chat if one really applied oneself. Billy was working at his old man’s pub, so Rose sometimes loitered out the back to catch him when he came out with festering buckets of trash, it was a long game though, sometimes she’d wait for hours. James, however, was currently exploring the world of free enterprise and was peddling a variety of things from a rented table at the Bull Ring.

“What the fuck are these?”

James looked up from his newspaper and sighed wearily at Rose’s ignorance.

“Avocado pears.”

Rose picked one up and squeezed it.

“D’you use them to smash people’s heads in?” she asked.

“They go soft when they’re ready for eating.”

“Did you sell any?”

James sighed again.

“That’ll teach you to go robbin’ containers in the dark,” Rose said with a grin. “What’d you think they were?”

“I just grabbed a crate,” James admitted. “The boat was out of Australia, they’re usually excellent.”

“How much d’you want for them?”

“I’m past giving a fuck, to be honest.”

Rose rooted through her pockets and came up with a surprising haul of change.

“I’ll give you two pound for the lot.”

James didn’t even pretend to think about it.

“Done.” He swept his merchandise into the crate with one smooth move. “Where d’you want them delivered?”

“Can you put them in a sandwich?” Rose asked.

“Supposedly,” James said uncertainly. “The fella who runs the kitchen at the Grand reckons once they’re ripe you can spread them like butter.”

“Will we bring them to Helen’s then?” Rose suggested. “Her mum might be able to use them.”

Helen’s mum had taken to selling lunch packets to the factory traffic in the mornings, to make up for the lull in washing work.

“If you want,” James shrugged and loaded the crate onto his handcart.

They set off for Small Heath, weaving through the packet market, James exchanging nods with his fellow traders.

“So, how’s business been?” Rose asked once they were clear off the stalls.

“So-so,” James said. “Beats the steelworks.”

Before he’d taken to robbing and selling, James had done six months of sweating over giant vats of molten lava, essentially. He had left him with rock hard arms, covered in splattered scars.

“Money was steadier but,” Rose pointed out.

“Yea, right.” James shot her a disdainful look. “Steady at goin’ down every few weeks, when the hours stayed the same. Breakin’ me back for the profit of the bosses, and nothin’ but wage cuts as a thank you. Bostin’.”

“If you joined the union-“ Rose started.

“Ah, fuck the bloody union,” James cut her off. “They’re all talk no action. Let’s go on strike, boys…yea, brilliant. That’ll fix the problem, won’t it? Walkin’ out and having your job passed on to one of the million-odd fuckers standing in line out front. Genius.”

“They-“

“Look, no offence, Rosie, but you’ve no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” James stopped and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sure your old man’s got plenty to say on the plight of the working classes-“ there was an irritating poshness to his tone for the last bit “- but it’s not like his lot are actually doin’ very much to keep the English in decent employment.”

“_The English_?” Rose frowned. “What?”

“We’re bein’ squeezed from all sides by foreign imports,” James said gravely.

“James…” Rose squeezed the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a moment, “-you’ve just robbed a crate of bollocks from Australia. You’re the one squeezing the foreign imports.”

“You know that’s not what I mean…” They were walking again, James had lit a cigarette and was passing it to her for a drag.

“What do you mean then?”

“India,” James grumbled. “Africa…”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“Cheap foreign labour,” he said. “Cheap foreign fuckin’ labour breaking the back of the English working man.”

Rose couldn’t think of anything to say to this. Unfortunately, James seemed to take this as encouragement.

“See, I was talking to a couple of fellas down the Ring the other day,” he charged onwards. “They’re a good bit older, they’ve been around the block a few times, yea, so they know what they’re talkin’ about. They’ve explained it all much better than I can, really…but…so, basically, we’ve lost control of our fortunes. Because there’s always something cheaper comin’ from the outside. Cheaper labour means cheaper prices, yea? It’s like, when it’s harvest time and everyone’s tryin’ to underbid each other so they can unload their produce, yea? So they’ve to cut labour cost to make it worth their while, right? So then, they end up hiring the fuckin’ gyppos instead of the English labourers, ‘cause they’re up for doin’ the job at half the –“

He broke off when he saw the look on her face.

“The gyppos, eh?” Rose asked.

“Keep your hair on,” James said. “I didn’t mean you. And, anyway, it’s not just them. It’s everyone, really. The Pakis, the Jews-“

“What Jews?” Rose threw her hands up. “D’you know even anyone who’s Jewish?”

“That’s not the point-“

“How’s it not? You can’t-“

“Look, I’ve been to meetin’s-“

“Fuck off…meetings with-“

“You fuck off your-“

“Excuse me, Miss? Is the lad bothering you?”

Rose and James, who’d been getting properly into each others’ faces, stepped apart and stared at the toffee-nosed numpty in front of them.

“What?” Rose snapped.

“I was just making sure you weren’t in trouble,” he said politely.

“Who’re you fucking callin’ a _lad_?” James eyeballed the fella something fierce.

He had two years on them, maximum, he was in no position to talk down to James on grounds of seniority. It seemed odd that he should be interfering at all.

“One should keep one’s tone in check when there’s a lady present.” He was eyeballing James right back, from underneath his ridiculous hat.

When Rose realised what was going on, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or die of shame. James had been her friend since before she could remember; it was impossible to think of anything she’d gotten up to in Watery Lane and not also think of James. He’d been her friend even before Alice, who’d always been there, too, or Helen or Billy. He’d been her friend for so long, she’d not considered what they might look like to someone passing on the street. There was James, his shirt rolled up and his pants covered in a day’s worth of market grime, with shoes that were ready to turn to dust if someone looked at them sternly; and then there was herself, with hair smelling of Lizzie’s lavender soap and a coat worth three months of rent of James’ family’s flat.

“I…” Rose didn’t know where to start here.

“Has this boy been threatening you?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw James drop the handle of his cart.

“Fuck off.”

Posh boy and James both stared at her in surprise.

“I beg your-“

“You’ll beg for mercy in a minute, if you don’t bugger off,” Rose interrupted.

“Yea,” James sounded positively delighted. “Jog on…”

“But-“

“Is he bothering me…” Rose was shaking her head. “Can you believe the nerve of this cretin?”

“Shockin’,” James agreed gravely.

“This-“ Rose slipped her arm around James’ waist and pressed herself against him, “-is me husband, _sir_, so if you don’t mind, we’d like to continue our conversation without interruptions from the likes of you. We’re very busy people.”

Utterly bewildered, Rose’s noble saviour backed away until he felt safe enough to turn his back and briskly make his exit. Rose and James were in hysterics well before he’d gotten out of earshot, but it didn’t matter.

“Jaysis, the face on him…” James was nearly weeping. “Ah, that was beautiful…”

“Morons,” Rose giggled, steadying herself at James shoulder to keep upright, “morons fuckin’ everywhere…”

They took a while to compose themselves, they couldn’t really look at each other because it’d set them off again. When they finally walked on, it was in a comfortable silence, each of them basking in the afterglow of a shared moment of excellence.

#

Helen’s mum looked exhausted, not too exhausted to have a bloody good laugh at them when they tried to give her their cargo.

“They’re exotic, Missis Jones,” Rose said unconvincingly. “You can charge extra.”

“God love ye, you pair of eejits…” Missis Jones wiped little tears of laughter from the corner of her eye.

“You don’t want them, then?” James made a face. “Not even for free?”

“Thanks for the thought,” Missis Jones said with a giggle. “Will I tell Helen you said hello?”

So, there they were.

James dug into his pocket and held out Rose’s money.

“Have it back,” he said with half a grin.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not. I can’t give this shite away, I can’t take your money for it.”

It was so lovely, James not rubbing her face into the fact that it was not only not her money but her father’s or that she didn’t have any actual need of it, Rose could have hugged him. Instead she accepted the fistful of change and put it back into the deep pockets of her fancy coat. Inspiration struck her out of nowhere.

“Come on,” she said, already marching with great purpose towards their next port of call.

“Where?” James asked suspiciously, jogging a little to catch up, the crate hopping in the cart behind him.

“Just come on.”

There was a warehouse down by the cut on the Sparkbrook side, that had changed ownership not so long ago. It still had the Tompson name on the side but the people running were new, from Manchester or something, Rose couldn’t recall.

“What are we doin’?” James asked as Rose led him through the front gates and towards an official looking fella standing off to the side having a smoke.

“Look annoyed,” Rose instructed.

“No problem,” James groused.

“Excuse me,” Rose called out in her poshest voice. “Excuse me? Sir?”

He frowned slightly, not quite sure whether to be rude immediately.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I really do apologise, but I have instructions to return your merchandise.”

“What merchandise?”

Rose stepped closer to James’ cart and tapped the crate briskly.

“This produce is completely unacceptable,” she said. “These avocado pears are hard as rocks. They were intended for use on tomorrow evenings menu and they are completely unusable.”

The fella shot James a confused look. James shrugged and rolled his eyes, Rose could tell even without seeing him.

“Who are you here for?” the fella asked Rose slowly.

“Oh, Jesus Christ…” Rose raised her eyes to the heavens in exasperation. “I work for the Manning-Fairchild household, _sir_, they are longstanding customers to this establishment and they would like me to convey that they have never – not once – experienced such inconvenience when Mister Tompson was in charge of this operation, not even when it was Mister Tompson, the younger.”

“Do you work here, mate?” The fella was eyeing James suspiciously.

“I-“ James started.

“For goodness sake,” Rose exclaimed. “I haven’t got time for this…Now, sir, if you would be so kind as to check the books and refund my employer whatever ridiculous price they’ve paid for this…pigfeed.”

“What are they?”

“Avocado _pears_. And, apparently…” Rose dug into her pocket and produced a folded piece of paper, containing notes on last Sunday’s news “…they go for the bargain price of three pound fifty pence per box.”

“Hang on…what?”

“Three pound fifty,” Rose repeated; the fella opened his mouth but she didn’t give him a chance. “No, they would not like a replacement,” she said. “They have changed tomorrow’s menu, for which they are expecting exceedingly distinguished guests, and they are quite upset about it.”

“Who are these people?”

“_These people_,” Rose shook her head in pity, “are spending hundreds of pounds each month on produce from your warehouse. As do many of their circle.”

“Three pound fifty?”

“Yes,” Rose said. “It seems a reasonable price to maintain half of your most lucrative customers, wouldn’t you say?”

Two minutes later, they were out on the street; free of their avocargo and three-and-a-half pound richer. Rose handed James their newly acquired funds.

“There you are,” she said.

“You did all the work,” James waved her away.

“But they were your…what are they, actually? Fruit? Vegetables?” Rose cocked her head at James. “Doesn’t matter. They were yours, cash is yours.”

James sighed dramatically.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll pay for the pictures though and no argument, eh?”

“Orright,” Rose conceded. “I pick the film but.”

“You’re man with the hat?”

Rose nodded, grinning wildly.

“Fair enough, he’s a good laugh,” James conceded.

“He’s Jewish, you know?” Rose said drily.

“Fuck off, he is,” James shot back. “They’re American.”

“Shite almighty, James,” Rose groaned. “You can still be-“

“Will you shut up?” James looked at Rose almost pleadingly. “I’ll buy you chips if you do.”

Rose took a deep breath and rolled her eyes.

“Blackjacks as well,” she announced.

“Blackjacks,” James nodded. “All the Blackjacks you can eat.”

“Orright.”

There was too much of the day left to cut it short on matters of principle. One had to keep busy after all.


	6. Apples

“What time’s the meeting?”

They were collecting their things, Lizzie and Rose; which was quite a mission thanks to Ruby and Charlie having played a game of ‘Easter’. It was simple game, really. You took anything that wasn’t nailed down and hid it somewhere impossible. Because they were still at the Midland, the things to hide had been limited to the contents of Lizzie and Rose’s bags, for work and school respectively.

“Eleven, supposedly.” Lizzie pulled a bent folder from beneath the sofa cushions. “Ruby? Ruby. Where’s mummy’s little bag with the money in?”

Ruby, grinning madly from her perch on the bed head, shrugged.

“The Easter bunny-“ she started.

“Sweetheart, mummy’s not in the mood,” Lizzie interrupted and Ruby pulled her lips between her teeth immediately.

Swearing under her breath Lizzie got down on her hands and knees and looked under the bed.

“Will you write me a note?” Rose asked.

“For what?”

“So I can be excused after first break.”

“Excused for what?”

“To go to the meetin’.”

It seemed fairly obvious to Rose, even for someone currently engaged in an Easter hunt. Lizzie sat up and gave her a very tired look.

“What?” Rose asked. “Finn’s been going since-“

“Take it up with your father,” Lizzie cut her off. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“But-“

“Come on, Rosie,” Lizzie said. “It’s a bloody board meeting, strictly company business.”

“There’s a family only one after though, isn’t there?” Rose insisted. “There always is.”

“It isn’t my decision to make.”

“Are you havin’ it at the Garrison.”

“I don’t bloody know, Rose…”

“So, it is then.”

Lizzie sighed.

“You do what you want,” she said. “But you know as well as I do, now’s not the time to get into it with him.”

Rose held back a groan and dropped the subject.

Lizzie was right, it wasn’t her call. She’d been copping it enough from Tommy of late, to be honest, it wasn’t on to drag her onto the battlefield. Having Lizzie there, all the time, ever since Rose’s father had caved in to Polly’s persistent suggestion that getting married again was a smart move all round…it had been good. She was excellent at managing Tommy, Lizzie was; she was better still at keeping Charlie distracted from what was going on. Making trouble for Lizzie, Rose knew, was as bad as making trouble for herself. Worse, probably.

“For fuck’s sake…” Lizzie dug the poker into the grate of the fireplace and unearthed her wallet.

“Happy fuckin’ Easter,” Rose muttered and, despite the general desperation of it all, Lizzie smiled.

#

Of course, when it came down to the wire, Rose couldn’t help herself.

Finn had been called to attendance at family meetings when he’d been three days shy of fourteen. He’d rubbed her face in it for months, taunting her with bits of information and refusing to elaborate until Rose had hurled herself at him with exposed claws.

“No.”

Rose had barely eased open the doors to the deserted front room of the Garrison.

“But-“

“You’ve no business here,” her father said.

“It’s a family-“

Pol was out of her seat and advancing on her with a face that sent the hair on Rose’s arms standing to attention.

“Right now,” she said quietly.

“I-“

“To the shipyard,” Polly said. “Right now. Until someone comes to get you.”

Rose glared at her.

“Make me tell you again…” Her aunt was towering over her now, much larger than she really was. An ivory tower of unyielding command.

Rose instinctively took a step back and found the door closed in her face. She considered her options for a moment. Getting close enough to listen without being seen was practically impossible; they’d see her through the window and, providing they’d moved the great unwashed on into the saloon bar, there was no chance of getting her ear against a convenient wall.

Fuck it.

#

“Here’s Rosie now,” Curly said pleasantly when Rose came stomping into the shipyard and tossed her schoolbag onto the muddy cobbles next to the fire bin.

“In a mood, are ya?” Her uncle Charlie had his feet up on a crate, staring out over the cut like it was the ocean.

“Why aren’t you at the meeting?” Rose asked.

“So that I can keep an eye on you.”

It was ridiculous. Her whole fucking family was ridiculous. Bunch of hypocrite fortune tellers, knowing she would show up even before she’d made up her own mind to do so.

“Are you hungry, beetle?” Curly asked.

“No,” Rose snapped and received a scathing look from her uncle Charlie. “No, thank you, Curly.”

Curly smiled and disappeared between the sheds, leaving Rose to join her uncle in the silent observation of the gently crashing waves of brown water.

“I’m old enough, aren’t I?” she asked after a while.

“Rosie-girl,” her uncle said wearily. “_I’m_ not old enough for half the stuff that’s put on the table at those meetin’s. You’re doing me a favour, really.”

Rose pulled dragged and empty crate over to Charlie’s side of the fire bin and sat down beside him. She could hear Curly muttering to himself somewhere far behind them. Her uncle produced a knife from one pocket and an apple from the other, carved a piece off and passed it to her.

“Worms?” she asked before she could stop herself. Charlie’s thin lips stretched into a grin so briefly, you’d have missed it for blinking.

#

There’d been a time when Rose had eaten apples at the shipyard every day. She was too young for school and a pain underfoot at the shop when Pol was trying to get on top of paperwork; it was much easier for Charlie to look after her at the yard. Rose didn’t recall being bothered by this. There were things to climb at uncle Charlie’s and horses to feed, sometimes, and even when there wasn’t a piece of fruit to be found in all of Birmingham, if word on the street was to be believed, there were always apples at the shipyard.

Her uncle Charlie claimed that, hidden in one of his many sheds, he had a barrel of apples that never ran out. It’d been a gift from a leprechaun, so he said, a return favour for prying the poor little bastard out of a rat trap. It had been a long time ago, when ancient uncle Charlie was barely more than a boy, and when the leprechaun promised to grant him one wish, no matter what it was – anything at all – he’d asked for apples.

As a little girl, a little girl completely convinced that this story was true, Rose hadn’t been shy to voice her opinions about her uncle’s choice whenever Charlie served up this tale (usually alongside an apple).

“Anythin’,” she’d shout. “Anythin’ in the world – _in the world_ – and you picked apples! Why? Why? _Why?_”

And every time she lost her tiny mind, every time she jumped around like a furious field mouse, demanding that he explain himself, her uncle would invariably reply:

“ ‘cause I bloody well loved apples, Rosie-girl. Still do.”

Then, one rainy afternoon when Rose had been about three, there’d been a worm inside her piece of the apple. A big, fat, black thing. Rose hadn’t come across this phenomenon before and was examining the apple and worm with great interest. She didn’t remember any of this, of course; but she’d been told it so many times it had come to feel like a memory.

“What’s that?”

“That’s a worm, chook,” Charlie told her. “Give it here, I swap you.”

“Is it for eatin’?”

“Not for you, it isn’t.” Her uncle handed her his wormless share of the fruit and took a solid bite of apple and worm. “You’re too little.”

It'd made an apple with worm in more desirable than the largest slab of chocolate. She’d begged him to be allowed to try wormy apple, absolutely pestered him. They’d all been in on it at the end – Polly and Ada and Finn – snatching worm-bitten fruit from her whenever she managed to procure some. _Not til you’re old enough. _She was, she really, really was; she’d only have a little bit. Just one try. _You’re too small, Rosie…_they’d kept it going for an age, all the way until the war was over.

But then had come the long and strange day when a throng of hollow looking strangers came marching into Small Heath and sent the entire place into a frenzy of joy. At the end of that day – it’d been late, well past the time Rose was usually sent to bed – they’d built a huge, celebratory fire at the shipyard. Her uncle Charlie had been uncharacteristically hammered, so much so, he’d swayed when he stood up and lurched away towards the darkness of the sheds. He returned with a shirtfront full of apples, one each for everyone.

“They’re leprechaun apples,” Rose told Tommy.

“Yea, I know.” He spent an eternity polishing his apple on his sleeve, by the end it was like a mirror for the fire, looking like the flames were inside it.

“Will you look at that…”

Rose looked up – Tommy as well, probably, all of them, probably – and there was her uncle Charlie, holding up a piece of freshly carved up apple between two fingers. The wormhole was so large, Rose could see it from across the fire even.

“Come here, Rosie-girl,” her uncle commanded groggily. “It’s your lucky day.”

“Really?” Rose squealed.

“Are you sure, uncle Charlie?” Ada, giddy with whiskey and brothers, had asked.

“Special occasion, Ada-love,” he said. “Come on, Rosie, come here.”

She’d walked around the fire, little up-late Rosie, like she was walking to her coronation. When he handed her the wedge of apple, the sacred worm wriggling in the deep of it, they had the entire family’s undivided attention.

“Now…” Charlie’s grog-softened featured turned serious. “Are you sure, you want this?”

“Yea,” Rose whispered, breath quick and heart hammering.

“Because there’s things that leave no way of goin’ back,” her uncle said gravely. “What’s eaten can’t be uneaten.”

Rose had nodded so vigorously it hurt her neck.

“Orright.” Charlie inclined his head in approval. “Go on then.”

And Rose, the eyes of young, old and recently returned trained on her glowing face, shoved the apple between her small, sharp teeth and bit, chopping the worm clear in half.

They’d nearly burst their shite laughing, the lot of them.

Well, not all of them, not really.

Her father – even if she didn’t remember that’s who he was, not at that moment, not yet – had watched her, his still face a desert island in amidst the tears of mirth. Watched her as she chewed her mouthful of apple and worm and swallowed it down alongside tears of confusion and anger. And then, just as Rose was making up her mind to throw the other half of the apple and worm in the fire and storm off; he’d held out his hand.

“Will you give me some of that?” he asked.

Rose had dropped the what was left of the apple and worm into his palm. He put the whole thing in his mouth and chewed slowly, deliberately.

“Well,” he said after a while. “That’s not all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”

“Few things ever are,” uncle Charlie’d said, in such a low voice that Rose was sure she was the only one to hear him.

#

Rose turned her piece of apple over in her hands.

“The great worm bujo,” she said.

“Drove you near mad with wanting,” Charlie muttered.

“And turned out bloody awful,” Rose sighed.

“Some things never change.” Her uncle gave a sad little shrug and sank his teeth into a chunk of apple of his own.


	7. Lines of Fire

Finn was leaning against the side of his car, the suit as sharp as the peak of his cap, cigarette a-smolder. Rose slowed down, partly because she was thrown by his presence outside the school gates, partly to enjoy the other girls staring at him with a complex mixture of fascination and disapproval. Her uncle spotted her long before she got sick of it.

“Orright, Ro?”

Girls, who had been eyeing Finn, were now staring at Rose. They weren’t so much surprised, they didn’t look it anyway; it was more like they were getting confirmation for something that was as well-known as it was preposterous. Rose wasn’t friendly with anyone at school, but the Shelby name carried certain connotations; no one had ever said anything, no one had ever even asked a question, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have any ideas, of course. In fact, there had been two or three occasions when conversations in the hallways had fallen silent when Rose walked by; silences that were too sudden to be coincidental.

Rose could feel the girls watching her as she made her way towards the car and Finn, putting on an air of casual indifference even though she was getting more nervous with each step. The last time Finn had collected her from school, half a lifetime ago, it had been to tell her that her father was in hospital. He’d been kicked by a horse, Finn told Rose. She’d been only seven, but she’d known it wasn’t true even before she was allowed to approach Tommy’s bedside. Kicked by a horse, Jesus… If they’d told her he’d been trampled by six horses, she might have gone for it.

Finn looked a bit hungover, a lot maybe, but he didn’t look like bad news.

“Orright, Finn?”

He opened the car door and held it open for her, probably putting on a bit of a show for the last of the audience. Rose raised an eyebrow slightly and climbed into the car.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I need a woman’s eye,” her uncle said as he pulled away from the curb.

“That’s not at all disconcerting…”

“Look at you,” Finn said with a grin that hadn’t changed since he was nine years old. “Little Rosie and her big posh words. Now, all the real women are busy at work, so you’ll have to do.”

“Fuck off.”

“Now, that’s better.” Finn stopped to let a horse and cart go past, his eyes resting on a gaggle of girls on the corner.

“You’re being digustin’,” Rose said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cigarette case. “They’re miles too young. And they look miles too nice.”

“Do I not deserve a nice girl, Ro?”

“A nice girl doesn’t deserve you.” Rose lit a cigarette and blew her smoke out of the window. “You’re too loose.”

“Loose?” Finn shook his head. “How dare you? I was thinking of getting married this mornin’.”

“To who?” Rose stared at him, incredulous.

“Elsie.”

“Elsie who?”

Finn shrugged.

“She’d have been Shelby, wouldn’t she?” he said.

“You’re ridiculous,” Rose groaned. “Where’re we going?”

“The jewelers,” Finn said.

“What? To get a ring?” This didn’t seem like a business Rose wanted to be associated with in any way. “You don’t even-“

“Keep your fuckin’ hair on,” Finn interrupted. “We’re not goin’ for a ring. Jesus.”

“So you’re not marryin’ her anymore? Elsie?” Rose worked hard to keep her face straight. “Since this morning?”

“Yea, well…fuck off.”

“So, what’re we doing at the jewelers?” Rose asked. “Present for Pol?”

Finn looked over at her with genuine alarm.

“Why?” he asked.

“ ‘cause it’s her bloody birthday coming up.”

“That’s not for ages,” Finn said with a sigh of relief. “I thought I’d missed something, don’t scare me like that.”

“It’s next week.”

“That’s ages.”

“You’ll get flowers, won’t you?”

“Yea, ‘course I will. But today we’re getting something for meself.”

Rose frowned as Finn fished something from his waistcoat pocket. She held out her hand and he carefully placed a small, hard thing in her palm. For a moment she turned it over between her thumb and index finger, too stunned to say anything.

“I’ll have it made into a necklace,” Finn said.

“Who’s it for?” Rose squinted to try and make out the writing.

“Me.” He sounded a bit irritated, like she was being particularly thick.

“No,” she said, not taking her attention of the bullet. “I mean, who’s it for? Who’ll you shoot?”

“It’s already spent, ya numpty.” Finn reached over and whacked her upside the head, very lightly.

Rose opened her mouth to tell him to fuck off when the penny dropped and her jaw with it.

“Did you get shot?” she blurted.

Finn nodded gravely, but there was no disguising how pleased he was.

“Got me right in the arm, the cheeky bastard,” he said.

“Bollocks,” Rose challenged.

Finn pulled the car up outside a row of shopfronts and slid out of his jacket. He undid his cuff and rolled up his left sleeve as high as it would go, exposing a bandage.

“D’you want to see?”

Rose nodded. There was an angry looking, oddly jagged wound, still seeping and bruised in the colours of the rainbow. There were some puffy bits, it was oddly like a living thing, like a sea creature or something had made its home on Finn’s arm and it took all Rose’s willpower not to poke at it.

“It didn’t go through,” she whispered, awed despite herself.

“Lodged,” Finn confirmed. “Aberama dug it out with a blade…on Ada’s fucking sofa.”

“D’you get blood on it?” Rose asked in horror.

“Put a jacket under,” Finn said with a smirk.

Rose snorted a laugh.

They sat side by side in the car, both of then angling their heads to get different views of Finn’s bullet hole. In the few years during which their childhoods intersected – when Finn had still been young enough to play and Rose was old enough to be an acceptable companion – they’d spent most of their time shooting each other. Sticks, nails, brooms, shoes…they’d use anything for a gun. They wounded and killed one another out on Watery Lane, in the shipyard and all over number 6. And then, at night, sharing a bed to ward off the worries of the dark, they’d spin tall tales of the real battles they’d get into when they were old enough.

Neither Rose nor Finn had ever considered the possibility of not getting shot, at some point; and they’re firm believe that this was simply a rite of passage had been cemented when Arthur and Tommy and John and all the rest of them returned home covered in scars of honour.

“Did it hurt very badly?” Rose asked.

“Nah,” Finn said offhandedly. “Barely at all.”

“Do they know yet?”

Finn’s triumphant expression fell a little.

“They’re getting old, Ro,” he said. “Tom’s been behind a desk too long…and Arthur’s goin’ all funny.”

Rose winced in sympathy.

“Well done, at any rate,” she said after a bit. “Fuckin’ well done, Finn.”

“Thanks, Rosie.” Her uncle winked at her. “Now, come on. Let’s see how we can dress this up, eh?”

#

When Rose returned home, quite some time later. Charlie came sprinting from the house before she’d even put both feet onto the driveway.

“Dad exploded the field,” he announced.

“What?”

“The field!” Charlie was pointing wildly towards the acreage around the back.

“What?”

Her brother took her by the arm and started dragging her forward.

“Charlie-“

“Just come and look.”

At first, it looked as though Charlie was messing; but then, as they trudged through the empty furrows, Rose could see he was right. There were scorch marks further away, but then, in the centre, there was carnage. Craters. Still smoldering bits of what looked like a suit.

“What the fuck…” Rose muttered and bent down, picking up a small bit of shredded metal.

Charlie crouched down next to her and looked at her with huge, wet eyes.

“It was an emergency,” he said croakily. “A real one. And you weren’t here.”

“I-“ Rose broke off and took a deep breath. “Where were you? When he did that?”

“Inside,” Charlie said. “At violin lesson.”

“What’d Lizzie do?”

“She weren’t here either,” Charlie said accusingly. “She was at Linda’s with Ruby. It was just me and Frances and she said to go in and show him what I’d learned and he was sitting there and he didn’t even say-“

“Orright, orright,” Rosie interrupted gently when Charlie’s voice started to crack. “Nothin’ happened, did it? No one got hurt?”

“It was scary!”

“Yea, I bet…”

What the bloody hell had he done? There were chunks of wood and little piles of burnt straw…none of it made any sense.

“Is dad still home?” Rose asked.

“No,” Charlie sniffed. “He’d to go to work.”

“But you did see him?” Rose looked at her brother intently. “After this –“ she swept her arm over the destroyed field “- you did see him?”

“Yes.”

Slowly, they started back towards the house. There were foot prints in the wet earth closer to the gate.

“Where were you?” Charlie demanded.

“I was at bloody school, Charlie.” Rose didn’t mean to snap at him and the hurt in his eyes made her feel awful. “I can’t be here all the time.”

“But-“

“I tell you what,” she said, putting on the most cheerful tone and face she could muster. “We’ll make another emergency plan. Just for you. A special Charlie mission, eh?”

“Yea?” He looked up at her uncertainly, but she could tell she’d peaked his interest.

“Oh yea,” Rose said grandly. “But it’ll be a big boy plan, so you can’t tell our Ruby.”

“ ‘cause she’ll be jealous?”

“Green with envy.”

Charlie grinned, a bit shakily but still.

“They’re still out,” he said. “Ruby and Lizzie.”

Rose kept her smile firmly in place.

“Will I tell you a story til they get back?” she asked.

Charlie nodded and took her hand; and so they went in and left the burned out, exploded chaos outside.


	8. Messages

The London apartment allowed Rose’s father to disappear for however long he chose. Not that this was a new thing. He’d always had tendencies to vanish.

However, the trouble with the London apartment was that it took away all grounds for being worried about him. It didn’t matter if he stayed away for a night or for a month, it probably didn’t even matter where he spent this time; if anyone asked anything, they’d simply be told that he’d stayed at the apartment. Things had come up at the House, it’d been madness to make the commute. It left no room for any sort of argument.

After Tommy had blown up the field, he slipped away into the murky somewhere that was the London apartment. Lizzie didn’t seem worried; but Lizzie was very good at seeming not worried.

After two days, Rose excused herself from a desperately dull history lesson, slipped through the gates and called the London office from the phone booth outside school.

“Mister Shelby’s office, may I take a message?” asked a voice she’d never heard before and Rose nearly hung up in fright, until it occurred to her that it had to be some sort of secretary. He sounded clean and efficient, the secretary.

“What?”

Rose wasn’t in the habit of making phone calls. She did answer the phone, occasionally, when she heard it and could be bothered; but that was different, wasn’t it, because it was someone else taking the lead.

“May I take your name,” he said slowly. “So that I might tell Mister Shelby who has been calling.”

“Rose,” she said.

This was the type of stuff they should’ve been teaching them at school; how to not be pathetic over the phone.

“And your last name, please.” He’d patience for idiots, Rose had to give him that. It was a trade that probably came in very handy for her father, who had no patience for anyone at all, not even for the exceedingly clever.

“Shelby.”

There was a pause.

“Any relation?” he asked finally.

“Yea.” Rose closed her eyes at the other end of the line, glad no one was witnessing her flaming face.

“Is it urgent?”

There was a new tone in his voice, as if he was preparing himself to run off and burst into a big, important meeting, shoving the closed doors open with both hands.

“I…uhm…”

“Will I tell him to call you back?” the secretary suggested.

“Yea, maybe…”

“I will do that, Miss Shelby. Just as soon as I speak with him.”

The line had gone dead and Rose, for a moment, stood bewildered in the phone booth. She went back to class, mostly for lack of better ideas.

She’d not been back in her seat for twenty minutes, the lesson was only just nearing its end, when there was a knock on the door and Miss Gable from the front office, came bearing an apologetic smile and a note for Mister Forbes.

“Miss Shelby.”

Rose startled.

“If you’d please go with Miss Gable,” Mister Forbes said quietly.

She stood up but didn’t even make it to a step before he stopped her.

“Do take your things,” he said.

“Why?”

There was nothing she’d done, nothing she was aware of, that would warrant expulsion on the spot.

“Come along,” Miss Gable stepped in, her smile now set to reassuring.

Rose collected her books and followed Miss Gable from the room. To her tremendous surprise they headed down the corridor, away from the Headmistress’ office. There was a car idling by the gate when Miss Gable opened the door, with Isaiah Jesus at the wheel.

“What’s happened?” Rose stopped dead and stared at Miss Gable, her heart going faster with every beat.

“I’m sure everything is alright,” Miss Gable said unconvincingly. “Your uncle didn’t elaborate on the phone.”

“My-“ Every bit of Rose’s skin turned to ice, the kind with bits of gravel frozen inside them. “I-“

Rose turned and was running by the time she took her third step towards the car. She ripped the door open and almost fell onto Isaiah when she got in.

“What’s goin’ on?” she demanded, her voice a much higher pitch than she’d intended.

“Arthur said to get you.” Isaiah had his eyes on the road.

“Why?”

“He didn’t look in the mood for questions.”

“Come on!” Rose glared at him.

“Oi,” Isaiah snapped back. “If I knew what he wanted, I’d tell you, orright?”

“Ah, fuck…” Rose fell back into the seat. “Can you go a bit faster?”

#

He didn’t even have time to properly kill the motor, Isaiah did, when Rose jumped out of the car and sprinted for the pub. She ran past the people waiting to be led through to the inner sanctum, threw the door open without knocking and froze.

Her father was sitting at the table, his back to the window, arms crossed; regarding her with a perfectly unreadable expression. A wave of relief crashed over her at the sight of him, but there was a hardness in his eyes, a storm coming over the ocean, and it sucked Rose’s little wave straight out to sea. Now that she was no longer moving, Rose noticed just how hard she was breathing. She put a hand up to her cheek and found it cold and clammy.

“You look a bit pale,” Tommy said. “You orright, Rosie?”

Her hands were shaking, she could feel them again now, and they were absolutely dancing.

“I…” She wanted to sit down, but there was something in her father’s bearing that suggested she wasn’t allowed to, not until he told her to do so. “I thought…”

“What?” Tommy prompted when Rose didn’t go on. “What did you think?”

“Dunno…”That he’d blown his head off in some corner of the big city, so that they’d never find him; that he’d jumped into the river or laid down on the train tracks in the dark…she’d thought a great many things over the past two days, but none of them were for saying out loud. “That somethin’ was wrong...”

Her father nodded slowly.

“And why’d you think that?” he asked.

“I…ah…” Rose was getting her breath under control, but a new kind of nerves were creeping up on her now. “Just…”

Tommy watched her wrestle with thoughts and words, long enough for him to light a cigarette.

“Let me tell you, eh?” he said finally. “You thought something was wrong because Arthur having you pulled out from school in the middle of the day is unprecedented.” He inclined his head a little. “D’you know what that means?”

“Unprecedented?”

Rose could feel her eyes wandering towards her shoes, as though she was six years old and in trouble for breaking the neighbours’ windows.

“Yea.”

“It means…ah…something that’s never happened before,” Rose managed. “Something that’s happening for the first time.”

“Right.” There was enough approval in her father’s tone for Rose to dare to glance over at him. He had one hand on the table now, the cigarette suspended in the other. “It’s only fair to assume something’s up when people take the trouble to interrupt you while you’re busy. Makes it look like whatever has happened can’t wait til you have time for it.”

Rose lowered her eyes to the point of closing. She could see where this was going now, it’d taken her long enough.

“Look at me.”

She did and was met with a stare so cold it very nearly made her shiver.

“Go on, I’m listenin’.”

Ah, good fuck, he was furious. There was no telling what would set him off, whether keeping her mouth shut would doom or safe her.

“You needed to speak to me-“ Tommy drummed his fingers on the table top, once, twice, “- in fact, I was told you gave the impression that it was rather serious.”

“I didn’t say that,” Rose said weakly.

“You said very little, apparently,” her father said. “Which is smart, you never know who’s listening. But, of course, it left me guessing. So. What is it?”

She was biting her lip, irritating herself as much as she was irritating him. But there was no way, none she knew of at any rate, that she could tell him that all she’d wanted was to hear his voice and know he was still alive to be speaking.

“What was so important?” Tommy’s voice was rising ever so slightly. “What was so fuckin’ important that you needed to call?”

He wasn’t letting her off, Rose could tell, he’d keep at her until she gave him an answer; perhaps there wasn’t any room under the carpet. It had to be full up, really, with all the strange things of his they’d brushed under there. Rose dropped her eyes and braced herself.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The floorboards were scuffed. There were lots of little bits of outside dirt on them; he’d been in here all morning, most likely, seeing members of the constituency, receiving requests for strings to be pulled and to keep the people, the real people, on side.

Her father got up and came towards her slowly. The temptation to run was almost overwhelming; he'd not smacked her in an age, she was getting too old for this sort of thing, but there were no guarantees for anything, not really.

“I’ll say this once. Are you listening?”

“Yea,” Rose croaked.

“Unless someone’s dead or the house is burning to the ground, you’ll not bother me when I’m working.” He paused, only a foot from her at most. “Anything else can wait.”

She counted the shreds of gravel on the floorboards and waited.

“Is that bloody well understood?” Tommy roared so suddenly, Rose nearly fell over.

“Yea…yes…yes, it is,” she whispered.

“I’ve enough on my plate, Rose-“ he was close enough for her to hear the air going in and out his nose, like a bull ready to charge “-without having to ask myself what new fuckin’ disaster you’ve landed yourself into, without the London office calling me at the pub – at the fuckin’ pub – to alert me that there’s some kind of unspecified crisis on the home front-“

Rose glanced up cautiously and realised the storm had broken loose, turning his eyes wild and setting his tongue rambling.

“The plate is fuckin’ full, d’you hear me? You’ve got to know better, you’re bloody old enough.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Yea, I am, too,” her father said darkly. “Sorry I’ve not taught you to think before you act.”

He might as well have slapped her, she might have preferred it if he did. Rose made herself concentrate on the tips of her toes, safely hidden away inside her shoes.

“Now, I’ve a room full of people waiting to give me their sob stories.” Tommy stepped away and Rose heard the click of his lighter. “The car’s out the front. You go wait in there til I’m done. Have a bit of a think, eh?”

She looked up in surprise before she could stop herself.

“Are you drivin’ me home?” she asked.

“I am, yea,” her father said. “Now, off you go before I decide to teach you a bloody lesson.”

There were some chances not worth taking. Rose eased the door open and slipped into the great Small Heath waiting room, to go and wait in the car. The world was turning into water around her, everything solid dissolving and floating away; she might as well do as she was told. She’d fuck all idea what else to do.

She'd have a think, just like he'd told her to. Maybe she'd work out why he was in Birmingham but didn't bother coming up to the big house. Or why he'd set the field on fire. Or why he had the look of a man with pockets full of bacon rind, surrounded by rats. She'd have a think. 


	9. The Werewolf at my Table

During her think, while she was waiting, it had occurred to Rose that perhaps her father was not so different from a werewolf. Not a real one, of course - though that would have been the type of thing she would have believed in wholeheartedly when she was little -; but moods seemed to take him and turn him into someone dangerous, much like the moon changed the wolf-men.

During their last year of school, well, anyone but Rose’s last year of school, Helen had become obsessed with werewolf stories. Helen, of all people. She’d had a stack of bent, smudgy pulp magazines; she’d to hide them under her mattress so her mother wouldn’t turn them into bog paper. In one of the stories, one of the better one’s Rose had thought, the fella who got bit had his mate chain him in the basement during a full moon. But, of course, even though he’d been warned, his mate came down to look when the fella started turning and ended up being torn to shreds.

It had struck Rose as somewhat noble, chaining yourself in a dank basement to keep everyone else safe. To know that you were dangerous and get away from people before you hurt them; it was a good thing to do.

It made her father’s hiding out in the London apartment, or even just the pretense of it, seem somewhat reasonable. Of course, if he could in fact control his moon, even just a little…then he was just a complete bastard.

Rose had decided to go with the werewolf view of things; it had made the silent ride to the big house less awful that it could have been. Her father hat sat and driven, his eyes trained miles ahead to where the road met the horizon, and she’d left him to it. It’d been orright. Peaceful, if you squinted.

Dinner though. Good fuck.

It hadn’t even been dinner, not as such. It wasn’t like they all ate together; it was Rose and Ruby eating, while Charlie and Lizzie moved their food across their plates, while Tommy looked through them all from his seat at the head of the table. Like he was presiding over them, making sure they were doing it right, even if he couldn’t be arsed at all.

Rose was a fast eater, an unbreakable habit formed over years of sharing meals with Finn, who was the human equivalent of a bloody sink hole; you’d blink and your plate was cleared for you, if you weren’t careful. These days though, there was more food than even Finn would have managed, and once Rose’s share of it was gone, it left her with nothing to focus on.

Charlie, across the table from her, was morosely poking at bits of meat. He didn’t like to eat animals, Charlie, but he knew better than to refuse outright. Instead he would bide his time until everyone else was done, try to cut his meat up into tiny bits and hide it in the gravy or under some left over potatoes.

“Don’t play with your food, eh, Charlie-boy?”

Charlie’s fork stopped moving.

“Daddy?”

Rose, who’d been loosing herself staring at the reflection of them all in the window, looked over and saw Charlie smiling up at their father with his most innocent expression.

“Yes, Charlie?”

“When’s the next great war comin’?”

There was nothing for quite a bit. Tommy didn’t look surprised or annoyed or confused…he didn’t look like anything. His face was so empty, Rose started to think that he might not have heard. That he was perhaps hoping that if he said nothing, Charlie might either repeat himself or simply disappear somehow.

“Why’s it called the great war?”

Rose turned her head and looked down at Ruby next to her, finding a tilted, curious face looking back.

“ ‘cause it was great,” Charlie said. “Wasn’t it, Rosie?”

Ah. Ah, bollocks.

“Great, was it?” Tommy asked.

He sounded amused. He could have been, people sometimes were when little kids said something funny; and it was kind of funny. Anyone would have thought he was about to have a chuckle, their father; but Rose could feel the ice thinning beneath them all. Charlie, alas, couldn’t.

“Yea,” he said.

He didn’t see the darkness ahead, Charlie, he was seven fuckin’ years old. It was good he didn’t see it, really, it was much better for him not to. Only it was also no good at all.

“And why’s that?” Tommy sounded like he really wanted to know.

“Because the grown-ups all were busy-“ Charlie’s voice took on a recitative quality “-the grown-ups all were busy and the children ruled the streets.”

Rose wanted to crawl under the table and die. No one could accuse her brother of not paying attention. It’d become their version of _once upon a time in a faraway land_.

“Go on…”

“There were loads of them,” Charlie went on. “Gangs of them. And they went everywhere, even into places they weren’t allowed. They went hunting and there was treasures everywhere.”

“Treasures, eh?”

“Yea.” Charlie grinned over at Rose. “Everywhere, our Rosie said.”

“Did she?”

She could turn it, maybe, if she was quick. He was making it into something it wasn’t, she could tell; if she was quick, if she found the right words, maybe she could turn it.

“They’re only stories,” Rose said, smiling at her father and rolling her eyes in Charlie’s direction. “I don’t-“

“They made camps at night, in their houses…” Charlie was on a roll, pleased to have Tommy interested. “And if you weren’t hungry, you didn’t have to eat.”

Rose closed her eyes for a moment; and still she could feel her father’s eyes starting to drill into her like hot needles.

“They’re made up stories, Charlie,” she heard herself say.

“No, they’re not,” her brother scoffed. “Everyone’s in them. Polly and uncle Finn and auntie Ada. They’re true.”

“Been tellin’ them about the good old days, eh? Bedtime stories of better days.”

Rose thought she might vomit.

“There weren’t any boots,” Ruby announced into the ensuing silence and out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw Lizzie putting down her knife and fork; it seemed a gesture of ultimate surrender.

“Yea,” Charlie said dreamily. “And they’d only time to wash you once a week, the grown-ups. And all the shops were selling only surprises. It was great.”

“Great,” Tommy echoed.

He sounded hollow, like he was miles deep, and only now Charlie caught on that something was off. The slightest crease appeared between his brows and he glanced over at Rose nervously. Like he’d told a secret without meaning to, without even knowing that it had to be kept a secret.

“Go on then, Rosie.” It took all she had to meet her father’s eyes.

“What?” she asked tiredly.

“Give us a story?”

Fuck him. Fuck this.

“When the grown-ups-“ Rose cleared her throat, “- when the grown-ups were all busy and the children ruled the street, Missis Turner from up the road found a sack of letters. A huge thing. A sack big enough to fit three of our Ruby into it.”

Her father lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

“It was full to the very top, with letters. Some of them a couple of years old, from when the war’d just started. So, Missis Turner started sorting the letters and her Danny and his mates started delivering them, all over Small Heath. You’d know, who’d gotten one, because they’d come out of their doors the next day like they were floating on air. Because, see, all the letters in Missis Turner’s sack were the kind of letters that made people feel good.”

They were all looking at her now; her father and Charlie and Ruby and Lizzie.

“James got one, well, his mum did, really,” Rose could feel herself smiling. “But it had a bit in it, just for James. It had a bit in it for his brothers as well and for his sister. James’ bit of the letter said that his father never worried about Red Indians coming into Small Heath and scalping everyone, because he knew that James was there to send them packing. That there was no finer cowboy in all of Birmingham.”

“Did you get one?” Charlie asked.

“Ada did,” Rose said.

“Did it have a bit for you?”

“It did, yea.”

“What’d it say?” Ruby whispered.

“That…” Rose cleared her throat again, quite violently. “That it didn’t matter how big I’d get. That he’d lift and swing me anyways, no matter how much time I had to grow til then.”

Slowly, every eye at the table wandered over to Tommy, hidden inside his cloud of smoke.

“But, see,” Rose went on, as steady as she could, “James’ big brother, Gordon, he said it wasn’t true. That the letters weren’t really from the dads doing the fightin’. It was Missis Turner wrote them all, he told us. She was tricking everyone, and we were all too stupid to see it.”

“She was,” her father said quietly.

“So,” Rose ignored him, “I told Ada. Told her we’d been had. I was so mad, I was crying, so she says.”

“Did auntie Ada get angry, too?” Charlie was leaning over the table now, nearly climbing onto it.

“No,” Rose shook her head. “She said it was orright and if I stopped bawling, she’d get me a block of chocolate the next week.”

“Did she?” Ruby asked.

“So.” Rose straightened in her seat. “I wait and I wait and then Ada gets in one night and she’s the biggest bar of chocolate I’ve ever seen. But then, I unwrap it and inside’s a piece of wood.”

“That’s not nice,” Charlie groaned.

“That’s what I thought, too.” Rose sighed. “And I got mad again, but Ada, see, Ada said to shut up and be thankful. Because I’d been happy for the whole week, thinking there was chocolate coming.”

She turned a little, so she faced her father. His cigarette was gone, his hiding place inside the smoke was gone.

“ ‘d you believe in Missis Turner’s chocolates, as well?” he asked.

“I did, yea,” Rose said, looking him dead in the eye. “It was great.”

For fifteen deep breaths, you could have heard a pin drop.

“Can you tell one more?” Ruby shattered the silence; but Rose and Tommy’s stares remained locked.

“It’s late, sweetheart,” Lizzie said gently.

“Please?” Ruby put her hand on Rose’s leg and her most beseeching eyes on her mother. “For a birthday present?”

“It’s not your birthday,” Charlie said drily.

“It is tomorrow,” Ruby shot back.

Rose’s father dropped his eyes. She couldn’t believe it. He never looked away first. It left her free falling for a moment.

“Come on,” she said when she’d landed back at the table. “But you’ll have to be in bed, orright?”

“About the cake made of apples?” Ruby asked.

“Yea, Rubes.” Rose pushed her chair back and stood. “Come on, Charlie.”

Charlie got up a little uncertainly, his eyes resting on Tommy, who was staring away at the curtains, perfectly still.

“Good night, daddy,” he said carefully.

He waited, the poor little bastard, polite as anything, but nothing came back.

“Is daddy asleep?” Ruby asked.

“He is, sweetheart,” Lizzie said, lighting a cigarette and pushing her plate away. “It’s so late in the day, Daddy’s fast asleep with his eyes wide open.”

She got up, Lizzie, and led the way, holding Ruby’s hand as Charlie and Rose followed. Tommy remained where he was, not a bit of him moving, like he was made of wood. Just a piece of wood, without its chocolate wrapper.


	10. A Mighty Fury and a Might Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. So, this one took a second and has turned out quite long and quite...full. Maybe too much so. Not 100% confident it's right (for lack of better word). Let me know what you think, eh?

When Rose turned four, in the last spring of the war, there wasn’t a fucking lump of sugar to be found in all of Birmingham, not even if you were Polly Gray.

“Ada says I’m not gettin’ a cake,” Rose announced one morning, idly stirring a spoonful of nothing into her cup of tea.

“Oh, yea?” Pol eyed her over the rim of her own bitter cup.

“Yea,” Rose said. “Is it ‘cause I’m a pain in the arse?”

Polly spat a mouthful of tea back and laughed so hard she cried.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she gasped when she was calming down. “I needed a good laugh this mornin’.”

Rose frowned.

“Don’t you worry, Rosie,” Pol smiled. “You’ll have a cake the likes of which this town’s not seen before.”

“Yea?”

“It’s a guarantee.”

On the morning of her birthday, Rose lay awake with her eyes firmly closed, listening to the room wake around her. She could hear Ada’s bedsprings and felt her own mattress shift as Finn climbed stealthily out of bed; there was a muffled cough as Polly disentangled herself from the sheets. Rose listened to the scraping of the chest of drawers being moved away from the door and the creak of the broken step. Then, for the longest time, nothing. The step creaked again, finally.

“Hurry up,” Finn said very, very loudly, right outside the door. “She’ll wake up any minute now.”

He was an awful actor, always had been. Rose jumped out of bed and raced to the top of the stairs. There was a strange glow, somewhere between green and orange, coming from the front room. It was so new, it made Rose slow down and get on tip toes.

When she peered around the corner, the small gang in the front room erupted into song – _Happy Birthday, dear Rosie…_ \- but Rose couldn’t tear her eyes away from the small table, not even to give them a smile. After they’d sung themselves out, Rose felt her aunt Polly’s arm slip around her shoulders.

“D’you like that, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Yea…” Rose whispered, awestruck, properly, for the first time in her young life.

The cake stood at least two feet tall, constructed from dozens of uncle Charlie’s leprechaun apples, a miracle of architecture. Each apple had been hollowed out and carved with windows and stars and moons and tiny dancing figures with wings, before being built into a twisting tower. It was lit with candles from the inside out, throwing shadow pictures on the walls.

It was beautiful.

It was so beautiful that Rose wouldn’t let them eat it, not a single bite. They’d had bread and lard for her birthday breakfast, but in the light of the cake it had looked better than usual and, if Rose was to be believed, tasted better, too.

She’d made Polly keep the apple tower until it was so wilted it collapsed.

#

“Did you get presents as well?” Ruby asked when Rose finished the story of the apple cake. “Were there presents when you were little?”

It made a girl feel like a grandmother, the way Ruby asked. That said, it was a fair enough question really.

“I did,” Rose said, shifting so Ruby could stretch out between Charlie and the wall. “I got a knife, not a real one though. Finn made it out of wood.”

“Uncle Finn did?”

“Yea,” Rose smiled. “He made it all by himself. I was chuffed, went round stabbing people for weeks.”

“I never get good stuff…” Ruby sighed wistfully.

She liked this sort of thing, their Ruby, she was forever sneaking into Charlie’s room to nick his toy guns and his bows and arrows. Rose had never seen her play with her bears and dolls, they were good only for target practice.

“You never know, Rubes, do you?” Rose said. “Might be your lucky day tomorrow.”

Ruby yawned and so did Charlie and Rose, head resting against her headboard, closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep until she could feel her siblings’ breathing become slow and dreamy. The house was quiet, there was no noise coming from the bedroom down the hall or the office downstairs. In all likelihood that meant Lizzie and Tommy were minding their own sleepless business in separate parts of the big house, but that was orright.

It was the best one could hope for on a night like this.

Rose slid down and wrestled a piece of blanket from Charlie. She’d sleep and even if there were dreams, it didn’t really matter. Tomorrow would come and it could be no worse than today.

#

After the driver had dropped her off at school on the morning of Ruby’s birthday, Rose walked inside, straight through and out of the back door. She jogged until she had rounded the first corner, dug a cigarette and matches from the bottom of her bag, and started strolling towards Small Heath. It was a bit of a walk, but it was dry and it felt strangely comforting to move all alone through the familiar streets.

When they had moved to the big house, Rose had refused to pack any of her things. It had been a feeble act of protest at best, because Pol had simply taken over and filled a box with the contents of Rose’s shelf. However, Polly didn’t know about the lose floorboard in Rose and Finn’s room, so Rose’s most treasured possessions had remained safely at number 6.

For the first few years at the big house, during the reign of Queen Grace, Rose had spent hours imagining her things patiently waiting under the floorboards until she was allowed to return. She didn’t know when she’d stopped.

It didn’t matter.

Rose broke a nail pulling the board up. Everything was still there, coated in a layer of dust. A shilling coin, a pair of glasses without any lenses and the wooden knife. Rose pocketed the money and rubbed the dust of the knife with the hem of her dress.

When Finn had presented her with this gift, she’d thought it was the most exciting present she’d ever gotten, that anyone could possibly ever receive. It didn’t look like much now, just a flat piece of wood whittled into the shape of some kind of shank, but maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe you had to be four years old to truly appreciate such a thing; with a bit of luck, Ruby would like it as much as Rose had.

Rose went downstairs and into through to the shop. It was only early, the driver wouldn’t be waiting at school until four and there was no point going back now and getting done for being late.

“Orright, Finn?”

He was standing at the board, chalk in one hand, a sheet of notes in the other, frowning.

“Orright,” he said, holding out the paper to her without talking his eyes of the board. “Can you read this shite?”

The sheet was covered in a shocking scrawl; Rose squinted at it for a good while before it started making sense.

“Fuckin’ football?” Rose raised an eyebrow at Finn.

“We’re exploring some new avenues of revenues.”

“What…fixing matches? Do they know about this?”

“ ‘course they bloody do.” Finn’s bullet-pendant had slipped out of his collar and his was rolling it between his fingers absentmindedly. “Was Arthur gave me the job to do.”

“Why?”

“Got to make money somehow.”

“They’re rollin’ in it but.”

Finn turned and looked at her.

“D’you not read the papers, Ro?” he asked. “There’s a financial crisis on.”

“Yea, I know,” she said imperiously. “But that’s in America.”

“Ah, ye fuckin’ thick.” Finn rolled his eyes. “Where d’you think our money’s been invested? What d’you think bloody Michael’s been doing over there all this time?”

“Buying motors?” Rose asked.

“Christ. Sit down.”

“You don’t get to fuckin’ tell me to sit down.”

“So, don't.” Finn dropped down into his chair and rooted through the desk for a smoke. “All the money, Ro, all the money from the horses and the cars and the drink and the other jobs, that’s all been going into American stocks. Cleans it up and makes it grow, right?”

“So…what?” Rose crossed her arms.

“So…what?” Finn mimicked. “So, it’s all gone. The lot. It's been gone for weeks.”

Rose decided to sit down after all. Her father behaving like an axe in the forest suddenly didn’t seem all that strange anymore.

“So, until we’ve worked out how to replenish our resources,” Finn lectured, “we’re keeping the company afloat by any means necessary.”

“So, hang on…” Rose leaned forwards and put both hands flat on Finn’s desk. “Are you sayin’ that the money’s all gone?”

Finn nodded.

“All of it? All the money?”

“A fuck-ton of it at any rate.” Finn looked at her strangely. “Are you smiling?”

Smiling didn’t quite begin to cover it. It was like a sunrise, like the weight of the world lifting, like fireworks inside her head.

#

“Who’s in?”

Rose froze mid-step and considered her options. The office door was ever so slightly ajar, ever, ever so slightly, too slight to be noticed. It was lucky, really, now there was no need to come up with an excused to go in and talk to him.

“Me,” she called back.

“Come here.”

He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week and there were sore looking marks on the bridge of his nose from wearing his glasses for too long. There was a glass on the table and a small column of smoke rising from the ashtray. The desk was covered in paper, he’d been in her all day by the looks of it, on his own with the phone, but he was in a full suit nonetheless.

“Orright, da?”

“Orright, chavi. How’s your day?”

It seemed to be turning into the week of unprecedented events, so, naturally, Rose became instantly suspicious.

“Interesting,” she said slowly.

“I assumed so,” her father said, leaning back in his chair.

Oh…oh, bollocks. She’d gotten so sidetracked, so caught up in all the new things she’d learned today that she’d completely forgotten about wagging school. It wouldn’t do to have the conversation degenerate into a telling off at this stage.

“Did they call?” Rose asked.

Tommy nodded. He didn’t look pleased, admittedly, but nor was he yelling, so all couldn’t be lost.

“I was getting our Ruby her birthday present,” Rose said. “I know, I should’ve thought of it earlier, but I didn’t.”

“Take all day, did it?”

“No,” she admitted. “But they don’t take kindly to tardiness.”

She put on a rather posh accent for the last bit, but her father didn’t crack even a hint of a smile.

“Did you go to the bloody pictures again?”

She hadn’t. Rose had spent the entirety of the day in the university libraries reading room, trying to make sense of the financial crash. There was no telling how much she had actually understood, if she’d gotten any of it, but it seemed safe to assume that everyone was collectively fucked.

“Yea, I did.”

It annoyed him to the point of giving him a rash, she could tell; even if his face gave nothing away.

“Orright,” he said after a while. “So. What’s new in the world?”

For a moment Rose considered changing course, but to pass up such a perfect entry point would have been nothing but cowardice.

“The Dow’s had a thirty-five percent loss this fortnight.”

Tommy, briefly, lost control of his face. It went slipping all over the place, going from surprised to amused to incredulous before he managed to settle his features back into place.

“D’you know what that means?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Rose admitted. “But from what I gather, it’s no good if you’ve got stocks with General Motors-“ her father’s eyebrow twitched “-or Chrysler-“ his hand moved towards the bridge of his nose “- or Nash.”

She watched him and waited.

“I see,” Tommy said finally.

“It said they lost more than twenty _billion_ dollars,” Rose went on, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, when you say it out loud?”

“Yea?”

“Yea…” Rose took a tentative step towards the desk. “I can’t imagine a billion of anything, not really.”

Her father took a slow and measured sip of his drink.

“It’ll be orright, Rosie, eh?” he said.

“Of course,” she grinned. “Place is as we left it, more or less. It’ll be good.”

Tommy cocked his head at her.

“What?”

“It’s orright,” she said reassuringly. “I can start working, you don’t have to pay me. Not straightaway. And they’ll get used to it, Ruby and Charlie, they’ll get used to it in no time. It-“

“Used to what?”

“Livin’ up from the shop…”

Something was brewing behind his eyes now, forcing her to slow down like a strong wind.

“We’re not goin’ back to live at the bloody betting shop, Rose. What are you on about?”

“But-“

“What-“ He was shaking his head now, like he’d been punched and was trying to shake it off.

“But the money’s gone,” Rose said. “Isn’t it?”

“A fair bit of it,” Tommy said tightly. “But money’s one thing, assets are quite another.”

“Assets?” Rose frowned.

Her father closed his eyes and flared his nostrils.

“Land,” he said. “Businesses. Buildings. Machinery. Ada’s fuckin’ paintings. Things that are worth money.”

Rose did recall the word assets turning up in her reading today, rather more than once, but it had been followed by such convoluted jargon that she’d not even attempted to unpack it.

“So, what?” She sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs. “We’re not poor?”

“No, Rosie. We’ve taken a hit. A big one. But we’re not poor.”

“Oh.” Rose slumped in her chair, her lips between her teeth before she could stop herself.

“Oh,” Tommy echoed.

The bubbles of hope, the giddy excitement of it, that had buoyed her through the day, turned into leaden pebbles and dropped into the pit of her stomach.

“Are you _disappointed_?”

Disappointed didn’t begin to cover it. She was crushed, crushed the way a kitten might be under the wheels of the milk cart; and she felt so stupid her cheeks were on fire instantly.

“Well…” The room was growing charged, alive with faint electric rumbles of impending thunder. “Is that what I’ve worked for then, eh?”

There’d be snow, too.

Rose felt a strange calm come over her. It didn’t matter what she said. It hadn’t mattered for an age.

“No one asked you to.”

She’d stunned him. It was as gratifying as it was awful. Slowly, her every muscle completely aware of its purpose, Rose stood up, pushed in her chair and walked out.

#

There was chocolate cake. With four candles. A bear.

Tommy came in, kissed Ruby on the top of her head; disappeared first into himself and then from the room altogether. Might have beat the smoke from the blown-out candles.

There were four plates and four forks, enough to feed a family of five on a miserable evening.

Then, of course, there was the roar of an engine. The crunch of tires of gravel. A flash of pure fear across Lizzie’s face.

“Right,” Rose announced over whatever Lizzie was starting to say. “Ruby! Are you ready for an extra special birthday emergency?”

Ruby jumped off Lizzie’s lap, on fire with excitement. Charlie, valiantly keeping a game face on, although his eyes kept darting to the window, was already by the door.

“Which plan?” he asked.

“Plan C,” Rose said firmly.

Charlie raced from the room, Ruby hot on his heels. Lizzie got hold of Rose’s arm.

“What-“

“We’ll be in the barn, in the van, orright?”

Lizzie blinked.

“Can you drive it?” she asked a heartbeat later.

“Yea,” Rose said sounding a lot more confident than she felt.

“You go to Pol’s,” Lizzie said. “If…”

Lizzie gave her arm a squeeze and a moment later Rose was barreling down the stairs to the coal cellar beyond the dry store room. Ruby and Charlie were already waiting on the top of the heap, ready to clamber out the delivery hatch once Rose had got it open.

“My socks,” Ruby whispered.

In the gloom of the cellar, her white socks were something unearthly, making the coal smudges all the more noticeable.

“Don’t worry,” Rose muttered, peering out of the hatch. The coast was clear. “Go.”

They raced across to the barn, well, it was a garage now, really, and expertly unlatched the door with a bit of wire. Rose wrenched open the back doors of the van.

“Get in,” she said quietly. “I get the key.”

The keys were in the cabinet by the double doors, a dozen of them, but the one for the van was the one with the shamrock on the ring. Rose grabbed it and tiptoed to the window.

There was a man on his hands and knees; and her father, aiming a gun – a fuckin’ submachine fuckin’ gun – at the idling car. Backlit by the light streaming from the big house, it looked like a scene from the shoot’em ups.

The driver’s side opened, Tommy shifted his weapon and Rose found she couldn’t move from the window. He was coming towards her father now, walking slowly, like every limb weighed a ton, but moving without hesitation. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t bothered. He’d a monster of a gun trained on him – at a range so insignificant, Ruby wouldn’t have missed – and he was not bothered.

The man took another step and for a moment the light from the entry hall and the living room window were on him like a spot light, turning the dark silhouette into Mister Gold.

Rose, who had been holding her breath without meaning to, suddenly felt faint and, out of instinct more than anything else, braced herself against the window pane with her free hand. The window gave way, cool night air rushed at her face and Mister Gold’s voice floated into the barn with it.

“…one arm and a hammer,” he might as well have been giving Shakespeare on a stage “and a mighty pain. And a mighty fury...”

Her father was lowering the gun, they were close enough to hug.

“They killed my son…”

Rose’s arm buckled and she nearly put her head through the glass.

“…put him up on a cross…”

“Rosie?” came a hiss from behind the van.

“…for you…”

For a moment she was confused, surprised, Like Charlie’d shown up in a dream of hers; but then the world slammed back into place around her. Rose found she was clutching the keys to the van with such force they were piercing the palm of her hand.

“Get in, Charles.”

Her legs refused to cooperate, she nearly stacked it twice on the few steps back to the van. Charlie and Ruby were staring wide-eyed from their seats on the tray.

“Close it,” Ruby whispered.

Rose closed the back of the van, climbed into the cab, put the key, slick with blood now, into the ignition and waited.

She could feel her eyelids growing heavy, like they’d done all the time in the weeks after her stay at the Grand Hotel. She didn’t want to sleep, her body was making her. Taking her away.

A gunshot ripped through the air outside and Rose jumped, banging her knee into the steering wheel.

“Get away from my house,” Lizzie roared outside. “Get away from my child…”

She had to turn the key now, Rose, and floor it and break through the barn door. Make it round the fountain and out of the drive way and onto the road to town. Drive them to Polly’s, Charlie and Ruby, safely locked in the back of the van; drive them off to safety.

Rose slumped and slid sideways, until she was lying on the seat, the shamrock of the keyring dangling seemingly miles above. Someone was crying. Weeping. Charlie, maybe, or Ruby, scared in the dark; or Mister Gold grieving outside on the steps.

She tried to sit up, turn the key and go; but she found that no part of her could be arsed.

They’d stay.

Someone’d come for them eventually; and, if it was Mister Gold, so be it.

With a tremendous effort, Rose pulled herself up and propped herself up against the driver’s side door. He’d see her now, Mister Gold, when he came…if he came. He’d have no need to look in the back of the van, one child was all he needed.

Rose closed her eyes and waited. A child for a child. You couldn’t say fairer than that.


	11. Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay...it's a bit trickier than I anticipated. Hope it floats all your boats.

“Are you cryin’?”

Charlie sat up at the bottom of Rose’s bed.

“No.”

She’d been sure he’d fallen asleep.

“You were cryin’ in the van.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

She’d slept. She’d slept until Lizzie had shaken her awake and led them all back to the big house.

“Yea, you were.”

“I wasn’t, Charles.”

“Yea...” he was giving her a hard stared from between her own feet.

“I’m not-“ Rose reached up and found her cheek slick with tears.

“No bawlin’ allowed, you tell me all the time.”

“Yea,” she heard herself say. “Yea, you’re right.”

#

One lazy afternoon, stretched out in a rare bit of sun on the top of narrow boat cabin, James had come up with a game called _Moneymaker_.

“D’you know, how everyone always says: _Ah, now, if I had a penny for every time I’ve heard that one_…?”

They all had, of course they had.

“Right.” James sat up and dug a miniscule pile of change from his pocket. “So…”

The rules were simple. One person said something and if you’d already heard this something today from anyone else, you’d to give them a penny. You weren’t allowed to lie; if it had been say to you, you paid up. When all five of them were playing and you got a couple of really solid moneymakers, you could walk away with some serious coin.

There were, of course, some standard pieces; phrases they’d rattle off without having to think about it. _Don’t make me tell you again_. _Will you tell your mum I asked after her. No news is good news._ _Don’t you bring that into the bloody house_.

However, the ultimate moneymaker, the one you always busted out first if no one beat you to it was _no bawlin’ allowed._ They heard it every day, from parents and siblings, from each other; it was a universally acknowledged rule.

There were all kinds of ways to keep yourself from crying. Looking up, so the tears couldn’t actually get out of your eyes, pinching yourself, holding your breath and counting to twenty, gritting your teeth until you felt angry rather than sad. You could sing to yourself in your head. You could imagine all the ways you’d get even. Rose knew dozens of ways to keep from crying, methods tried and true, yet none of them were working now.

Nothing was working.

She’d sprung a leak. She was overflowing. It was out of her hands.

It wasn’t a loud sort of crying, she wasn’t weeping and beating her chest the way Bonnie Gold’s aunties and cousins and sisters would be doing soon; but the steady flow of tears, somewhere between a trickle and a stream, would not let up. She stayed in her room, on her bed, waiting for the monsoon to pass. Food kept appearing on her desk, startling her, only to disappear again as she was making up her mind about eating it.

#

Ruby came in.

“Emergency!”

Rose stayed on her bed, leaking, until her sister gave up and went away.

#

She fell asleep as rivulets of tears slid down into her ears and woke on a soaked pillow. Her cheeks were developing angry red patches from the constant exposure to salty water.

#

Charlie came in.

“D’you know why Johnny Dogs is Johnny Dogs?”

Rose looked at him with some effort and it was like being behind a waterfall.

“ ‘cause he’s not a black cat,” Charlie said with an expectant grin.

She closed her eyes and rolled over. 

#

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at herself leaking and leaking and leaking, waiting for the tears to turn to blood. There couldn’t be much more water left inside her. It was impossible.

#

Lizzie came in.

“That was well done,” she said softly. “Ruby’s still delighted.”

Rose kept her eyes on the ceiling until it started to warp through the bulging lenses of unrelenting tears.

“You can have another day,” Lizzie said and Rose thought she could feel her hand on her shoulder. “But then I’ll have to call in the cavalry.”

As the door closed with a gentle click, Rose turned her head to the side and felt the waters of sorrow splash onto the bridge of her nose. There was nothing to worry about, she’d heard enough of her father’s war stories to know the cavalry was fuckin’ useless.

#

It wasn’t letting up. Rose wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it had been a while; and her tears were still clear.

She’d got the wrong end of it, maybe. Perhaps her tears weren’t turning to blood because her blood had turned into tears, she might have already been crying out her blood, she might have been for ages.

It was dark outside, the house was still, Rose’s straight razor was still in her bedside drawer. The rows and rows of cuts from the days after the Grand Hotel had faded. They were no longer raised, they were just little white lines, like crinkles, like Rose needed to be ironed.

“Rosie.”

He was in the chair in the furthest corner of her room, his eyes as deep as tunnels. Pale, he was, and thin looking round the wrists. He probably wasn’t there at all.

“I’m only havin’ a look,” Rose whispered.

She drew the blade across her arm and waited for what seemed like a long time, until a thin line of red bubbled up from beneath her skin.

“Huh…”

She looked up and found the chair in the corner empty.

#

She woke to her aunt Polly packing socks and a skirt into Rose’s schoolbag.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she said with a smile. “I was just goin’ to wake you.”

Rose propped herself up on her elbows, every move an effort, her body weighing a ton.

“You’re coming with me,” Pol announced.

“Why?” Rose asked groggily.

“ ‘cause I want some company on my last night as a young woman.”

Rose’s elbows gave way and she rolled over to face the wall, tears dripping as she shifted.

“Up you get.”

Perhaps people weren’t so different from cups and glasses. If you kept pouring sadness into them, they’d run over eventually, when they were full.

“Don’t think I won’t carry you.”

They’d had enough arguments, Polly and Rose, for both of them to know that there could only ever be one winner when Pol really set her mind to it. Very slowly, Rose rolled back and got her legs over the edge of the bed.

“No rush,” Pol said softly.

The walk down the stairs took an unreasonably long time and by the time they got to Polly’s car, Rose was absolutely knackered. She dropped off before they’d even made it through the gates.

#

“Sweetheart…” It was dark outside and cold and Pol was shaking Rose’s shoulder gently. “Turns out I can’t carry you after all.”

Rose dragged herself up Polly’s garden path and dropped onto her sofa without even taking her boots off. The fire was going and it smelled of dried herbs and things.

“Sit up.”

Pol was setting a teapot and a bowl full of something dark and steamy onto the small table.

“I’m tired…”

“You’re running.”

Rose opened one eye and rolled it in Polly’s direction.

“The pain’s still going to be there when you wake up,” her aunt said, settling into the chair opposite. “Even if you sleep for a thousand years. It’s not going anyplace until you face it.”

“It’s only been a little while…”

“Rosie-“ Pol was looking at her steadily, as unrelenting as she was patient, “- you’ve been crying for days.”

“How many days?” Rose asked.

“Four.” Polly poured tea. “Four days of crying and sleeping.”

Rose closed her eyes and felt the lids bulging as they filled up with tears.

“I don’t want to be awake.”

“I know.” Pol took up the bowl and held it out to her. “Sit up now. Drink this. And listen.”

“What is it?”

“If people could die of broken hearts, Rosie, there’d be no one left alive.” Pol dropped a lump of sugar into her tea and stirred idly. “But, you see, no matter how great the pain gets, no matter how heavy we are or how torn, our hearts keep beating and the earth keeps turning and one day turns into the next.”

Rose sat up a bit more and brought the bowl to her lips. It smelt of broken bones.

“It’s hard to imagine when you’re young,” Pol said. “But you’ve to look around you, sweetheart. We’ve all lost. Parents, children, lovers, brothers, friends. You can’t live without being touched by death.”

It was true, Rose knew it was. Pol had a dead husband and a daughter buried somewhere impossibly distant. Her uncle John had lost auntie Martha and then they’d all lost him in turn. Freddie-sad-Eyes had died and left behind Ada and Karl, living and breathing. She couldn’t even think about her father and his dead wives, dead parents, dead friends crushed and shot and mangled in the tunnels.

“But-“ There was a sharp sting all the way through her centre now, making her see her own pain more clearly.

“What, sweetheart?”

“I didn’t even-“ A sob escaped, loud, deafening, rippling the surface of the horror in the bowl, “- he…he wasn’t anything to me, not really.”

“Oh, Rosie…”

“We’d barely even…he…I…” It was shaking her now, making her spill dark liquid onto her skirt. “I’m bein’ stupid…”

“No,” Polly said firmly. “You’re not being stupid.”

She put her hands around Rose’s hands on the bowl and locked eyes with her.

“He was a beautiful boy, Bonnie Gold,” she said and Rose started hiccupping noisily, “and now he’s gone and everything he might have become is gone and there is nothing stupid about grieving for that. Nothing at all, d’you hear me?”

“But-“

“It hurts most the first time,” Pol said. “But you’ve got to believe me, you’ll live with it. We’ve all learned and you’ll learn as well.”

She was crying properly now, Rose, with snot and sound and a deep aching in her worn out chest.

“It’s a hard lesson…” Pol’s voice was drifting only just over the noise inside Rose, “…but it’ll serve you well, I promise you. Now, drink.”

Rose brought the bowl up to her mouth and took a deep gulp of something so bitter it made her cough and wretch.

“All of it,” Polly said mercilessly. “It’s bitter and it’s awful, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

So, Rose drank. The foulness from the bowl mixed with the foulness inside her, churning and growing hot. She drank and sobbed and suddenly the bowl was empty and she could feel her eyes beginning to dry. Pol moved from her chair to the sofa and Rose leaned against her, feeling wrung out and beaten. She slid down until her head was in her aunt’s lap and Polly’s fingers were running through her unwashed, tangled hair.

“_Oh chonut asal amen_…” she sang as Rose closed her eyes again, “…_teochonut korhavola – teamed dikhasa…_”

Rose drifted away as Polly sang of the moon and the weeping around the fire, feeling her sadness become solid inside her; like a new bone, maybe, something that would keep her upright the next time death came calling. If she was lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Moonlight Song:   
O chonut asal amen /Teochonut korhavola /teamen dikhasa /kon vakarela /Kaj e phake erovimase /thaj e asamase /ka arakhadon
> 
> The moon smiles down on us /around the fire we weep /Our crying flies up among the moonbeams floating down /heaven smells our tears /we sense the beams /If the moon is blinded we can see who is speaking… /With one wing of tears and one laughter /we take off to meet him.


	12. Matters of Conviction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say: Thank you all for your lovely comments - they really keep me motivated and thrilled that there's such cool folk along for the ride. It's fuel for my soul and, by extension, fuel for Rosie - yikes, that sounds cheesy...it's true but. Many thanks!

The next morning Rose woke early and was setting tea down on the table next to a vase of yellow weeds from the garden by the time Pol came downstairs.

“Happy birthday, _beebi_.”

“Oh, you’re lovely…” Her aunt held out her arms and for a moment they stood, wrapped up in each other and the light breaking through the kitchen window.

They drank tea and ate fried bread and listened to the street coming alive with carts and motors.

“You always were an early bird,” Pol said with a small smile. “Made me get up and go down before the crack of dawn, so we wouldn’t wake the others.”

“Tea for two,” Rose said through a mouthful of bread.

“Tea for two,” Polly echoed. “Will I read your leaves?”

Rose shook her head.

“No?”

It was fair enough that Pol was surprised, Rose never passed up a chance to glimpse the future.

“I don’t want to know what’s comin’,” Rose said quietly. “Just not right now.”

Polly nodded.

“Fair enough,” she said. “Will you read mine though?”

On those early mornings, when she’d been small and the world had been at war and the house was dark and quiet, Rose had spun wild tales of adventures big and small while staring into her aunt’s tea leaves. Very few of her predictions ever came true – apart from fool-proof things like Pol having a row with the baker over the size of the cobs – but Pol never complained.

“Sure.”

Pol upended her cup onto the saucer and pushed it towards Rose.

“Right, let’s see…” Rose bent over the saucer and squinted. “Ah, grand. You’ve a wheel there…”

She did. There was a perfect circle in amongst the leafy mess.

“You’ll be going on the road,” Rose said. “For a little while, at any rate. A long drive out where it’s green and quiet, listen to the songbirds and the rain.”

Polly smiled, a faraway look in her eyes.

“The car will be filled with flowers and beating hearts,” Rose went on, tilting the saucer a little, “and a bit of the devil, but not the bit you fear.”

“Aren’t you quite the poet,” Pol said.

“We do what we can, eh?” Rose said drily.

“That we do…” Polly put her teacup down. “Come on, you can be one of the beating hearts in my car.”

#

They pulled up outside the shipyard and Rose craned her neck to see how many motors were already parked out the front.

“Meeting, is it?” she asked.

Pol opened her door, stepped out and put her pristine shoe right into a pile of horse manure.

“You wait,” she said, leaning against the car and easing her foot out of the now filthy shoe. “There’s nothing but shite out here.”

Rose didn’t protest. She’d no desire to see her father, no desire to see any of them really; with their big fucking secrets that got people killed even if they were miles away and minding their own business. As she watched her aunt walk into the yard on bare feet, still more elegant than any other woman Rose had ever known, she only hoped that Finn hadn’t forgotten to get flowers.

It was still early, before nine, Rose reckoned. They’d be in there for a while, surely, and Billy’s da’s pub was just round the corner. Checking the ground before she set her feet down, Rose climbed out of the car and headed down the street.

#

Billy was out the back, a drenched apron round his middle, hosing out empty barrels.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said cheerfully, aiming a spray of icy water in her general direction.

“Orright?” Rose asked.

“Am I fuck.”

“That good, eh?”

“D’you know what he did?” Billy asked, turning off the hose and dropping it onto the wet cobbles. “Go on, have a guess. You’ll never get it.”

“Who?” Rose grabbed hold of one of the barrels and hoisted it upside down, so it could dry out.

“Don’t get your dress dirty, Jesus…” Billy got in between Rose and the rest of the barrels and started turning them over on his own. “Fuckin’ James, that’s who. Guess. Guess what he’s done.”

“He’s not in jail, is he?” Rose asked with some alarm.

“Bloody should be, the mongrel. But no.”

“Did he get some bird up the duff?”

“Like he’s gettin’ any, the ugly fucker.”

“Right,” Rose leaned against the wall. “He’s grown a pair of wings and is flying to America as we speak.”

Billy grinned. He was good that way, Billy. Even when he was in a shite mood, he never let it take over everything.

“Came in here, yesterday after the Ring closed down,” Billy said, hopping onto a barrel to take a seat. “Came in with a whole herd of lads from round and about. _Bill_, he says to me, _as many rounds as my mates can stand – my shout_.”

“Did he rob a bank?” Rose asked.

“Wait for it,” Billy sighed. “So, I’m in on me own. The old man’s havin’ Wednesday afternoons off these days, getting me used to running the show. Now, they’re really going for it, those mates of James’, they’re going for it hell for leather. And I’m keeping up nicely, I’m marking it all down, I’m on top of it. _Have one for yourself, eh, Bill, for old times’ sake_, he goes, like we’re fuckin’ fifty years old. Grand times, happy days until…”

There was a vague bang from inside the pub and Billy broke off for a moment, listening with his head to one side. Nothing though.

“Right, so. Happy days. The lads are gettin’ pissed, I stand to make a killing, the old man’ll be so pleased, I can’t wait to tell ‘im. And then, five minutes after the factory siren goes, in come the regulars. D’you know Nate and Len Jacobson?”

“No.”

“Go on,” Billy frowned. “They were two years ahead of us in school. Mad footballers? Bright red hair, both of them?”

Rose couldn’t picture them and settled for a vague shrug.

“Fuck it, never mind. Where was I?”

“The regulars come in,” Rose prompted dutifully.

“That’s right. So. I turn my back for a minute to get the good whiskey from the top shelf and when I turn back round, there’s James and his mates and they’re getting right into Nate and Len’s face. Callin’ them all types of cunts. Of course, they’re havin’ none of it and neither are their mates from the shift. So, there I am, standing with my whiskey like a fuckin’ tit, goin’ _Oi, James, mate – what the livin’ fuck? Don’t start a fuckin’ brawl in my place, for fuck’s sake_…And then, of course, his mates are rounding on me now, aren’t they? Going _You said he was orright, you said this was a decent place serving decent men_. Right. So, now of course, it’s on, isn’t it. So, I get the sledge hammer out from under the counter and I go _Right._”

“Were you not packing it?” Rose asked, a little breathless, heart pounding on behalf of Billy.

“I was shitting meself,” Billy admitted. “But, Jesus, I figured I’d be better off dead with my old man knowing I put up a fight than him havin’ me bollocks for letting them smash the place to bits, eh? Anyway. James goes all grand and he says: _Gentlemen, they’re not worth it, the fuckin’ ikeys_. You should’ve seen Nate go off at that, took three blokes to hold him, he was fumin’. But, anyway, they left. James and his lot.”

“Ah, no…” Rose groaned when the point of the story became clear.

“Ah, yes,” Billy said darkly. “A good ten quid he’s taken me for, the fucking bastard.”

“How’s it you’re still alive?” Rose asked.

It was a well-known fact that Billy’s dad was tight as a rat’s arsehole.

“He ran into some lads from the shift down the road,” Billy said. “Thank fuck, they told him I’d been ready to go into battle. He’s not pleased, mind. Fair enough though. That’ll teach me to let any fucker keep a tab."

“Fuck.”

“Yea. Anyway. What’s new with you?” Billy hopped off the barrel and came over to lean beside her.

“Not much,” Rose shrugged.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“They’re havin’ a meeting up at the yard…” Something occurred to her. “Ten quid you were sayin’?”

“And sixpence. Why?”

“I’ll go see if I can catch one of them on the way out.” Rose pushed off the wall and gave Billy a wink. “They’ve been banging on about the plight of the people enough, haven’t they? They may as well ease yours, eh?”

“Ah, now, Rosie…” Billy looked less than thrilled.

“It’ll be a favour to me, if it happens at all,” she assured him. “Don’t worry.”

“Swear it,” Billy said with rare gravitas. “I’d rather be ten pound in the hole than in your old man’s pocket…or your uncle Arthur’s. I’m serious.”

Rose paused at the corner.

“You’re a smart man, you know that, Billy?”

“Yea, well, opinions weary…” He smirked.

“You tell your old man that I said so, eh? When you give him his money.”

Rose dashed off back towards the shipyard before Billy could say anymore. The prospect of doing something good, something that would solve at least one problem, no matter how small, was pumping blood into parts of her that had been cold and numb for days.

#

It was only Polly and Arthur left at the shipyard by the time Rose vaulted over the back wall and stealthily made her way towards the fire – just in time to watch her uncle boot it with all his might, scattering red hotness all over the place.

“Orright, uncle Arthur?”

He wheeled around and looked at her with a crease between his eyes so deep it held all the pain of the world.

“I told you to wait in the car,” Polly said with a sigh.

“And I did wait in the car,” Rose said. “The meetin’s over, isn’t it?”

“Yea,” Arthur rasped. “Only the dregs left now, eh, Pol?”

“Speak for yourself,” she said, but she didn’t sound annoyed, not really.

“Orright, Rosie?” Arthur lifted an arm and Rose slid underneath it, wrapping her own arm round his waist.

“Been better,” she said.

“Yea, me as well.”

Hugs and honesty didn’t come easy to Arthur nor Rose, and the rarity of it made them tighten their holds on each other to the point of discomfort. Pol looked from Rose to Arthur and back again, half-a-smile on her face, her eyebrows creased ever so slightly.

“I’ve to step into the shop,” she said. “I’ll be five minutes, tops. Meet me at the car, Rosie?”

Rose nodded, knocking her head on her uncle’s collarbone. They stood, glued together by their sadnesses, watching Polly go.

“Rosie?”

“Yea?” “Lizzie’s about, isn’t she? At the house?”

Rose shifted and tried to look up at her uncle awkwardly.

“Yea,” she said slowly. “Why?”

“Good,” Arthur growled. “That’s good. She’s used to it, see, to the ugliness, Lizzie. A good woman an’ all, don’t get me wrong.”

“Auntie Linda is, as well,” Rose said more out of duty than conviction. “She’s a good woman.”

There came a noise from somewhere inside Arthur that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

“She is…” Arthur cleared his throat. “A good woman. Too good a woman. See, there’s the kind of good woman, who can put up with ugly things and then there’s the kind, who can’t.”

“What’s happened?”

Rose could feel her uncle’s heart pounding through his jacket; it felt enormous, like the heart of a bull, much more likely to explode than to ever be broken.

“Dunno…” Arthurs hand was taking up most of her upper arm, holding her to him like a vice. “Run off, I s’pose you’d call it.”

Rose’s jaw dropped slightly.

“Auntie Linda?”

“Yea.”

“D’she leave our Billy?”

“Nah,” Arthur said with real bitterness. “Took him along.”

“Fuck…” Rose whispered.

“Yea.” A snort, another squeeze. “Don’t worry though, Rosie, orright? Just keep an eye, eh?”

“An eye on what?”

“Y’know…” Arthur shrugged, the fabric of his coat rubbing against her cheek, “…the home front, I s’pose.”

The fuckin’ home front? Jesus Christ… Rose’s mind was bending in all sorts of places. This was new. Women were for leaving, by useless bastards anyway; they didn’t _do_ the leaving, not unless they died. She couldn’t blame her auntie Linda – none of them could, surely – uncle Arthur was no picnic, not even on his best days; but nor was Tommy. And Lizzie, good fuck, she’d been over at Linda’s every other week, for ages, takin’ Rubes to play with Billy…

When Arthur let go of her, she nearly lost her balance. For a strange moment, her uncle made to pat her on the back, like she was Finn or one of the lads.

“Ah…uncle Arthur?” Rose gave him a lopsided sort of smile. “Can you lend me a tenner?”

“What for?”

“So, I can send Lizzie a bunch of roses.”

He smiled then, everything crinkling up around his moustache and wet eyes.

“Good girl, Rosie,” he said, digging into his pocket already. “Here you go – us firstborns ‘ve to stick together, don’t we? It’s shite at the best of times.”

“Ta, _koko_.”

“But it’s special, too, remember that, eh, Rosie? That it’s special, too.”

It was like her insides were being pulled together, like to top of a string bag. Arthur was off before she was able to undo herself enough to talk. For a moment, Rose stood alone amongst the last of the smoldering coals, ten pound in one hand and icy prickles in the other; then she turned and went to meet Pol at the car. One moment. Bleeding into the next.  



	13. Random Acts of Kindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my little note of thanks has spurred an unprecedented avalanche of delightful feedback - that felt amazing and I loved it and thanks again to all you little reading monsters. This is so much more fun because of you. Hooray!

Pol stopped the car and Rose, who’d been day dreaming her way through the wet streets, looked up at the building looming beside them.

“Who’s ill?” she asked once her brain had caught up with their location.

“I’ve a visit to pay,” Polly said. “You can come in with me, if you like.”

“A visit to-“ Rose broke off, her eyes going wide. “Is Mister Gold in there?”

Polly nodded.

“They’ve saved his arm,” she said. “Now, I’m supposed to save the rest of him. Apparently.”

“I…uhm…”

“You can wait.”

“Can I?” Rose’s heart was jumping. “Is that orright?”

“That’s fine, sweetheart.” Polly opened the door. “I won’t be long, I don’t think.”

She was nearly at the hospital doors when Rose leaned out of the window.

“Will you give him my condolences?” she called.

“Of course,” her aunt called back. “Cigarettes are in the glove box, eh?”

They were. Alongside a small handgun with oddly beautiful swirls in the handle. Rose lit up, leaned back and, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped the gun into her deep coat pocket.

#

Rose must have drifted off again, because the rapping on the window startled her enough to make her jump.

“Rise and shine,” her aunt was leaning against the side of the car, a slight flush in her cheeks.

“All done?” Rose peeled herself off the window and got upright.

“Not quite,” Pol said with a small frown. “Listen, sweetheart, I need you to do me a favour.”

Rose cocked her head.

“Aberama’s ready to leave,” Polly said. “But it’s probably best if that goes unnoticed for now. He’ll be orright making it to the car with my help, but we’ll need a distraction for the nurses.”

“What?”

“Anything, really.” Pol smiled. “He’s on the second floor, the corridor off to the right. His room’s only two doors from the stairs. I’ll need two minutes to bring the car round the back and another two to make it back up there.”

Rose bit her lip for a moment, then nodded.

“I won’t be able to wait for you,” Polly went on. “Will you be orright making your way to Charlie’s?”

“Yea,” Rose said. “Yea, sure.”

“Good girl, Rosie.”

“You’re lucky it’s your birthday,” Rose said with as much bravado as she could muster. 

#

The room next to Mister Gold’s was empty, Rose noticed in passing. The bed was only just stripped, they’d not even remade it, and the chart was still at the foot of the bed. _Turner, John_ it read, _7/11/1876_. It was safe to assume that Mister Turner had not made it out of this room alive, poor old codger.

Rose stood in the empty room for a minute, listening to the chipper voices of the nurses in the rooms around her, until she could hear the familiar sound of pointed heels clicking on the stone floor. She took a deep breath, counted to three and started screaming.

The first nurse took perhaps twenty seconds to arrive, staring at Rose in horror and confusion. Fair enough. She was a sight, she imagined, hair everywhere, eyes wide and running over, her hands clawing at the mattress like she was trying to rip it apart.

“What-“ the nurse started.

“Where is he?” Rose howled. “Where is he? What’ve you done to him, you fuckin’ butchers?”

“Who-“

Rose flew off the bed and towards the nurse with such force, the poor thing nearly fell over backing away. There were two more of them by the door now, breathing hard and unsure of what was going on.

“Where. Is. He?” Rose roared.

“Calm yourself, Miss…”

There was a fella in there with them as well now, the doctor, probably, coming at her with palms raised like he was surrendering.

“Fuck off,” Rose spat. “Where’ve you taken him? Where is he? If you’ve- I –“

Sobs came easy to her, she’d practiced enough in the last few days. She covered her face with her hands and hair, peering through a gap between her fingers and weeping with renewed vigor when she saw the blurred forms of her aunt and Mister Gold limp past the door as fast as they could. They’d be at the stairs in three deep breaths.

“I couldn’t …” Rose howled, “…I was at work, yesterday…and now…oh, Jaysis…please…”

They led her to the empty bed and sat her down. It was a good minute before any of the left the room, to bring her back some water, a couple more minutes still before the last one escorted her down the stairs to the cab they’d called her.

“I’m sorry,” Rose whispered, pressing the nurse’s hands in hers. “It’s not your fault, I shouldn’t have…”

“That’s quite alright, Miss Turner,” the nurse said sadly. “It’s a shame, he was a lovely man. And don’t worry about the fee for the car. Just tell the driver where to take you.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

“Of course,” the nurse smiled reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about at thing.”

Rose got into the cab and gave the driver an address in Egbaston. It’d be a fair walk back to the yard from there, but she’d time and, when it came to some things at least, she’d been taught by the best.

#

Billy’s da was out the back of the pub when Rose rounded the corner.

“Good afternoon, Mister Temple,” she said politely.

“Orright, Rose?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Billy’s off with the delivery blokes,” Mister Temple said curtly. “Will I tell him you called in?”

“If it’s no trouble.” Rose dug into her coat pocket and found the tenner crumpled beneath her newly acquired gun. “And will you tell him that James is really very sorry about what happened the other day?”

Mister Temple eyed the note in Rose’s outstretched hand suspiciously.

“How’d he come by this sort of money?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Rose said with a grimace. “I don’t want to know, to be honest. But he’s too ashamed to come and give it himself.”

“Rightly so.” Mister Temple took the money, folded it neatly and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “And you can tell the little bastard he still owes us sixpence.”

Rose could barely bite back a grin.

“Will do, sir.”

Mister Temple gave her a nod and disappeared into the pub; Rose jogged the last bit of the way to the shipyard, in the steadily increasing rain.

#

Uncle Charlie was in one of the sheds, surrounded by what looked like a million loose bullets covering most of the floor.

“What-“ Rose started.

“People,” Charlie cut her off furiously. “Bloody people bein’ too thick, cheap and lazy to bother with proper packaging.”

There was a large crate on the table, like an island in the sea of ammunition, it’s side pried open, the crow bar still next to it.

“Don’t just stand there,” her uncle snapped, pointing to the shelf beside her. “There’s small boxes there, eh? Will you give us a hand?”

“Sure,” Rose said quickly.

They got down on the floor and started counting the bullets into the boxes.

“They should fit a-hundred,” Charlie said.

“Orright.”

“Sorry I roared at you, Rosie-girl.”

“That’s orright.”

Rose knelt and picked and counted. Her uncle Charlie was grunting a lot more than seemed decent, looking awkward and uncomfortable on his hands and knees.

“I’ll do this on me own,” Rose said after a couple of minutes of harrumphing. “If you tell me a story, I will.”

Charlie slowly and painfully straightened up.

“You’re a bit old now, aren’t you?” he asked, getting himself off the ground with grunting difficulty.

“Look who’s talkin’.”

“The fuckin’ cheek,” her uncle said, shaking his head. “But fair enough.”

Rose grinned and waited until he was safely on a chair, lighting a cigarette and unscrewing the top on his flask.

“Is it true your people were dragon slayers?”

He coughed and spluttered.

“What’s this?”

“Me da reckons the Strongs used to climb up the mountains, skin dragons for boots and bathe in their blood.” Rose carefully sealed a full box and started on the next. “Long ago.”

For a while there was nothing but the click of bullets on more bullets, the scraping of bullets on the ground and the rattle of bullets in a filling box. Uncle Charlie smoked and watched his smoke travel towards the ceiling of the shed.

“You know, Rosie-girl,” he said. “It’s a tricky business, the slaying of dragons.”

Rose slowed down ever so slightly and glanced up at him.

“So, it’s true?” she asked.

“It’s not untrue, at any rate. But see,” her uncle coughed, “dragons are cunning beasts. More so than rats and foxes and all the rest of them, ‘cause dragons come in all sort of guises. Some take the shape of men. Others dissolve until they’re at one with time. There’s dragons that are invisible. You might not know you’re dealin’ with one until it’s too late.”

The bullets were dropping steadily from Rose’s hands into their new home.

“There’s dragons that come out of nowhere to whisk away fair maidens,” Charlie said. “They’re the kind that make it into the stories, the kind that have the bold and brave up in arms with their pitchforks and torches. It’s because they take those who matter to most people, those who matter even to strangers. But what we don’t hear about, not so often, anyhow, are the dragons that come for the others.”

“What others?”

Rose’s hands had stilled. Her uncle Charlie hadn’t told her a story in so long, she’d forgotten just how good he was at it. His voice was a croaky and low, the way an ancient raven might sound, so you had to be quiet and listen closely, else you might miss the best bits.

“Thing with the fair maidens, Rosie-girl,” he went on, “is that as soon as they see so much as a talon peeking round the corner, as soon as they hear as much as the flap of a wing above the roof, they’re up on their tiptoes and screaming for help. And, because they are young and fair and prized by the world, help comes running. They’re used to this, the maidens fair. So, they don’t worry about making a fuss. They’re allowed. They’re worthy.”

Rose was staring up at him now, her legs crossed, bullets digging into the backs of her thighs.

“And then, there’s the others. The unloved. Or those, who feel as though they’re unloved. The ones, who’ve been taught for many long and painful years that they don’t matter enough for people to come running when there’s any trouble, never mind big trouble like a dragon coming.”

“What happens?” Rose whispered. “When the dragons come for the unloved?”

“That depends…” Uncle Charlie lit another cigarette. “On what sort of a dragon comes. What it feeds on. Not all dragons have a taste for flesh, see. Some’ll go through the countryside and eat the crops til the farms are barren and the people are starvin’. There’s those that’ll sneak into men’s pockets and crunch their coin, til there’s nothin’ left. And then, there’s the whispering dragons.”

“What do they eat?”

Her heart was beating, it was the loudest thing in the shed.

“Sorrow.”

There had been a time when uncle Charlie seemed a giant, the tallest, strongest, most solid man Rose knew. The king of shipyard castle, who’d chase away anyone, who came to bother her - boy, man, dog or copper. Now, on his chair, looking off into the distance, he was as delicate as the keshalyi.

“What they do is, you see, they slither onto a shoulder, hide in someone’s hair, and start to whisper. Strange and horrible things. Doesn’t matter whether they’re true, they just keep on whispering until a person begins to believe. Thing is, a fair maiden, she’d cry and someone’d come running to hold and console her and chase the dragon off. And she’d be happy to let them do so. But the unloved, they hide their sorrow, they’re ashamed of it and they just bear it and bear it until they’re filled with pain and then, Rosie-girl, when a person’s so filled to bursting with their own aching soul, the dragon unhinges its jaws and swallows them whole.”

He looked at Rose, uncle Charlie, with tiny dragons swirling in the wetness of his eyes.

“How d’you slay them?”

She could barely hear herself over the roaring of blood in her ears.

“Hard to say.” Her uncle cleared his throat. “You do. Or you don’t.”

“The whispering ones…” there was urgency in her voice now, “…how d’you get rid of them?”

“If they’re your own,” Charlie said, “you go out and you scream for help, you scream and you scream in all the ways you can think of and, if you’re lucky, someone’ll come for you. And when they do come and tell you that it’s just a dragon, forcing the sorrow upon you, you’ve got to make yourself believe them. No matter what the whispers tell you.”

Rose swallowed.

“What if it’s someone else’s dragon?”

“Ah, Rosie-girl…” Uncle Charlie leaned forward and put his hand on her head, resting it there like she was a walking stick. “If the whisperin’ dragon’s got someone else, the best you can do is try. Try anything. Shout at them, drag them by the hair away from what the dragon shows them and hope that they’ll glimpse what you know to be true.”

“Does it work?”

Her uncle considered his answer, she could see it. His hand was trembling atop her head, slightly only, like the beating wing of a tiny dragon.

“Not often,” he said finally. “Not as far as I’ve seen.”


	14. Coins in the Pan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst. ANGST. Angst.   
You've been warned.

“You’ve to ask your sister.”

Rose looked up. She’d been well past the darkening horizon, curled up on the window sill, staring until her vision blurred.

“Ask me what?”

Ruby pointed to the last biscuit on the plate.

“Can I have it? Please?”

She’d probably had more than was good for her, old Rubes, she loved a biscuit. Rose dug a couple of coins from her pocket.

“Two-up for it,” she said.

Ruby cocked her head.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Rose frowned.

“What’s two-up?”

They were in the drawing room, the three of them and Frances, eating biscuits, listening to the receding rain and the crackle of the radio. It was all perfectly ordinary but Rose had…actually, she wasn’t quite sure what she was having.

Oddly, it was mostly biblical bits that came to mind when she tried to work it out. Scales falling off her eyes. A divine light illuminating the room so the truth could be seen. Or maybe someone just pulled up a curtain. Who the fuck knew.

Ruby didn’t know what two-up was.

She’d a game of bloody checkers going with Charlie over at the table – she knew all the rules and all the moves, Ruby – but two-up didn’t ring a bell. And – _and_ – she had her back to Charlie and the board and he was just sitting there, their brother, waiting patiently in his little tie and waistcoat for Ruby to return for her go. He wasn’t moving the pieces around to his advantage or anything. It hadn’t occurred to him to cheat; or, if it had, he’d decided against it.

“Charlie,” Rose heard herself say. “Can you stand up for me?”

He frowned slightly but unfolded himself from the flat cushion by the little table.

“And now?”

There wasn’t a scratch on him. His bare, pale legs framed by shorts and long socks were unmarked. No bruises, no scabs, no cuts, not a scar. The only time Rose could recall, when Charlie had gotten a knock and drawn blood, had been when she kicked him down the front stairs. That was it. And that had been her, it hadn’t even been an accident of his own.

“What now, Rosie?” Charlie asked.

“Nothin’, never mind,” she said.

Charlie rolled his eyes and sat back down. It was cracking Rose’s brain to bits. How was it possible that she’d ended up a sister to children like this?

“Can I have it?” Ruby asked again.

“Yea…”

There was a streak of light on the wet window pane as a car turned into the drive, lights on as high as they could go in the miserable weather outside. Rose covered the window with her hands and watched as one of the black-and-whites came outside to collect her father with an umbrella, only to be passed by as he walked from car to house in the rain. Rose smiled despite herself. She was bound to be new, your woman with the umbrella, recently arrived from a proper household where such things were expected and, to an extent, appreciated.

#

He came in, still in his damp coat and cap, a face on him like he’d been sold a lame mare. If you squinted, you could nearly imagine steam rising from his head and shoulders; but Charlie and Ruby were up and at him in a flash. Rose watched him rearrange his face and body; force up the corners of his mouth, bend his knees and open his arms to receive his clean, unbruised children, who played board games and asked permission before taking a biscuit.

“Evening, Frances,” he said over Ruby’s head. “Is my wife in?”

“In the upstairs study, Mister Shelby.”

No matter what Frances said, she always sounded as though she was apologising or, at the very least, deeply saddened by the information she had to relay. Tommy nodded, still balancing on his haunches with a child pressed either side of him.

“Right. Now, you-” his tone hardened and he gave Rose a pointed look, “-in the office.”

“Why?” They all asked it at the same time, more or less, Rose and Charlie and Ruby.

“ ‘cause Rosie and I need to have a chat.”

Ah. Ah, bollocks.

#

They’d not had a chat since it had transpired that Rose had facilitated the great gin heist of 1928.

They were throwing James a party of the roof of the green block, for his fourteenth, and Rose was furnishing the bar. She knew her father would have let her have the drink if she’d asked him, she’d known then. Happy fuckin’ birthday by order of the Peaky Blinders and all that. Tommy knew James, he’d have been happy to sponsor his first proper piss up. But Rose had so wanted to do something behind his back, just the fuckin’ once.

It sounded awful and ridiculous, and it probably was; but he always knew everything. Every bloody thing. This one time, Rose just didn’t want him to know. Simple as that.

She’d nicked the key for the storage shed at the shipyard; it was easier than trying to sneak into the pub and safer tham stealing the drink from the house, where Frances was relentlessly monitoring consumption. No one was going to notice a bottle or two missing from the shed, it was packed to the rafters.

It was meant to be a small gathering, just Helen, Alice, Billy, herself and James, of course; but then James’ brother Gordon deigned to make an appearance, with a whole bunch of lads from the abbatoir, as well as some folk from school and from round the way and before they knew it the rooftop was hopping and the bottles were empty.

It would have been orright, of course, if Rose hadn’t been so pissed already that the climb up and down the stairs was just unfathomable. Alas, she had been.

When she sent Gordon off with the key and instructions to hop the wall by the back entrance, it had never occurred to her that he’d bring back more than a few bottles. It certainly hadn’t crossed her mind that he’d take the delivery van from the abbatoir, load it up with crates upon crates and fuck off.

If he’d at least had the sense to fuck _right _off and drive his loot out of town as soon as the deed was done, perhaps things might have not disintegrated into total disaster. But, as it were, Gordon was orright and didn’t want to ruin his brother’s festivities. So, he’d come back, with a crate of gin and the key for Rose, stayed for one last drink that turned into approximately twenty-seven final beverages and then passed out with the rest of them in amongst the celebratory debris…with the fully loaded van parked right below them on the street. The fuckin’ tit.

Rose had woken up to absolute pandemonium, the main feature of which was her uncle Finn and Isaiah Jesus dangling Gordon over the edge of the roof, holding an ankle each. She might have kept her mouth shut, had she not still been a bit demented from the drink; but as it were, she was convinced they were going to drop him. Had she known about the truckload of gin, she might have kept her mouth shut regardless.

Finn had delivered her hung-over remains to number six, a ten minute walk during which Rose managed to throw up no less than four times.

“Go easy, eh, Tom?” Finn suggested faintly, already backing away from the silent fury radiating from Rose’s father. “She’s a bit rough.”

Rose took one look at Tommy’s face and expelled whatever remained inside her all over the front step, splattering his shoes and the cuffs of his trousers.

“Sorry,” she groaned.

“You’re orright,” her father said pleasantly. “Go up and sleep it off.”

Rose narrowed her dry, scratchy eyes.

“I’ve business at the pub,” Tommy went on. “Go up. We’ll have a chat when I get back.”

Admittedly, she did feel vaguely better after passing out in one of the upstairs rooms for a few hours, but even a hundred days of sleep wouldn’t have prepared her for the “chat”. It wasn’t a chat, anyway, it was a fuckin’ board meeting. He’d a list of items for discussion as long as the strap he’d dug out from fuck-knew-where.

Disappearing overnight without a trace. Robbing your own. Trusting an outside party with the key. The fact that the gin shed did not exclusively contain gin, but a great many other things that might have been taken. Getting absolutely plastered. Getting absolutely plastered in the company of young men without a family member as chaperone. Keeping the company of idiots. And, worst of all, at least in Rose’s opinion, she’d sent Curly into a mad tailspin because he’d been convinced he’d lost the key.

He'd only whacked once for each of these points of discussion, so, on the whole even Rose had to admit that he’d gone pretty easy. And even Rose had to concede that she’d probably deserved it. And, to be honest, he had brought her back some kind of magical gypsy tree root that settled her roiling stomach after a bit of chewing on it. And, to be fair, almost everyone who’d been on the roof got a hiding for their troubles. It wasn’t at all unexpected. It was a sign of a good party, really.

All in all, Rose hadn’t felt horribly hard done by.

#

Now though, as she was following her father towards his office in the big house, Rose couldn’t think of anything she’d done that could possibly warrant a chat. She found herself slowing down more and more the closer they got, until she was going at such a snail’s pace that Tommy was already leaning against his desk, smoking a fresh cigarette by the time she caught him up.

“Close the door.”

For fuck’s sake. Rose closed the door.

For a bit they just stood there, eyeing each other, being watched over by the ridiculous paintings of horses. Rose let her eyes wander around the room. Over the heavy wooden furniture. Over the stupid gold leaf on the picture frames. Over the solid gold paper weight. There were so many ugly things in this room, in the whole house, really; all of them chosen for being hideously expensive. _Stick a coin to the bottom of your lavatory pan and the gypsies will call your shitter a palace_, as her auntie Ada was fond of saying. And in amongst it all, in amongst all this useless crap, stood Tommy; looking down at her as if she’d somehow offended his ridiculous sensibilities.

“What?” Rose snapped.

Her father raised an eyebrow.

“What?” she repeated. “What’d I do?”

“You know, Rosie,” Tommy said slowly, “at night, when everyone in this family’s sleeping, I stay awake and I sit and work out ways to go forward.”

There was something off in his tone. He wasn’t drunk, she didn’t think he was, not of a large bottle anyway. His eyes were glazed, a bit, and more black than blue. Perhaps he’d been at one of the little bottles, as she was stalling; perhaps if she’d been faster in coming in, he wouldn’t have had time for it.

“And then,” he went on with that faraway voice, “when the rest of you get up in the mornings, get out of your cosy little beds, all refreshed from a good night’s sleep, you can’t think of a better way to spend your days that to throw rocks onto whatever path I’m trying to forge. Can you?”

“What’s that mean?” Rose asked, her face knitted together in irritation.

“It’s like trying to swim in a suit lined with led.”

“Is it?”

“Yea, it is.” He was glaring at her now, with real venom, but Rose was somehow unsure that he was looking at her at all. “That’s what it’s like when everyone around you – strangers and kin alike – have nothing better to do than make everything more difficult.”

“Who did make what difficult?”

Rose was glaring right back, taking great comfort from her own furnace of fury starting to bubble inside her.

“As if it wasn’t difficult enough…” her father ground his cigarette into the heavy, crystal ashtray and pushed off the table. “Like I haven’t got enough on without people fuckin’ meddling where they’ve no business.”

“What-“ Rose started.

“Blatant disregard for orders, that’s what it is…”

Rose turned and started towards the door.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

Ah. So he could see her, he did know she was there. Rose’s furnace flared up.

“You’re not makin’ any sense,” she said. “I’m going. I didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t do a thing, did you?”

Rose had once seen a crocodile, a stuffed one at the museum, and there was something very like that crocodile about her father’s bared teeth now.

“No.”

“I see…”

“Just fuckin’ tell me and get on with it,” Rose exploded, whirling around to face him. “What’ve I done that’s so fuckin’ terrible? Tell me!”

“Aberama fuckin’ Gold,” Tommy roared. “He didn’t do his runner on his own now, did he?”

“Pol said-“

“You don’t take your orders from Pol,” he interrupted at top volume.

“What orders?” Rose shouted. “I didn’t have any fuckin’ orders! Pol said to help her, so I did – go fuckin’ shout at her if you don’t like it!”

He was snarling now, his face was not at all his own. He was like something wild and furious, like the genie out of that bottle had taken him over head to toe.

“Come here!”

“No,” Rose spat.

“No one ever fuckin’ listens…” Her father was coming towards her now, a bit unsteady, like he’d done six rounds in the ring. “In me own house…I’ll be listened to in me own fuckin’ house-“

“I fuckin’ listen!” Rose stamped her foot, she hadn’t meant to, but there was rage exploding all over her body now. “If you’d just tell me something, anything, anything at fucking all-“

“What the fuck’s going on?”

Lizzie was easing the office door shut behind her and came into the room with three long strides, coming to a stop between the two of them.

“I could hear you at the other end of the bloody house,” Lizzie hissed. “The kids are in tears. You-“ she gave Rose a stern look, “go up to bed.”

“This-“ Tommy started.

“This,” Lizzie said softly, “is no better than any man in Small Heath comin’ home pissed to beat his children ‘cause he’s in a mood.”

Rose, hand already on the door handle, froze. She’d come to save her, Lizzie had; come to the rescue with guns blazing. It seemed wrong to abandon her to the consequences now.

“Lizzie-“ she started.

“It’s orright, Rosie,” Lizzie said. “Go up.”

He was coming up, Rose could see it over Lizzie’s shoulder, coming up from wherever he’d been. She slipped out of the room, buzzing the way she sometimes did after a wild horse ride. For a minute or so she stood outside the door, listening; but all stayed quiet on the other side of the door.

#

Lizzie knocked before entering, even though Rose’s door was ajar. She came in and leaned against the doorframe, looking utterly exhausted, yet somehow taller than Rose had ever seen her.

“Is he orright?” Rose asked.

Lizzie laughed bitterly and shook her head.

“_He_?” she asked. “What about you?”

“Yea, I’m orright…” Rose propped herself up on her elbows. “Was he mad at you? For comin’ in?”

“Fuck it, if he was,” Lizzie said. “I’ll not have children treated this way in my house. Not my own and no one else’s either.”

“Bloody hell, Lizzie.” Rose could feel the corners of her mouth twitching slightly. “No messing with you, is there?”

She allowed herself a bit of a smile at this, Lizzie, albeit a shaky one.

“Lizzie?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

Lizzie flinched, a tiny bit only, but Rose caught it nonetheless.

“It’s orright if you want to,” Rose said quickly. “Only…” something was stuck in her throat that took some clearing away, “…if you do, will you give me a bit of warning?”

For a moment Lizzie closed her eyes and Rose could see her chest rising and falling with a deep, deep breath.

“If it comes to that-“ her eyes opened, found Rose’s and held on, “-you’ve my word, I won’t spring it on you.”

#

Rose shot up from a dream she couldn’t remember, gripping the sides of her bed, forcing breath into herself.

“Did you dream of the dragons?”

Exhaling slowly, Rose turned her head towards the chair in the corner. Her vision was blurred with sweat and the light didn’t quite reach there, but she could guess at a mournful smile on his face.

“Maybe…” she whispered, sleep already working to reclaim her.

“Close your eyes,” he said softly. “They’ll never make it past me.”

Rose lowered her head onto the pillow and fell asleep before her lids had a chance to close. It didn’t matter what came for her in the night; right now the big house was full of fierce protectors.


	15. Out Loud

Tommy was gone in the morning and so was the big black from the stable. Rose stood in the empty box, looking at the abandoned saddle hanging on the wall, cracking her knuckles over and over until her hands were aching.

There was a part of her, a fairly sizeable part, that was ready to hop on one of the horses huffing around her and ride out to look for him. But the rest of her, all the other parts, knew there was precious little point. She couldn’t ride in all directions at once and she’d no idea where he might have gone. And if she were to find him…dangling off a tree branch…bleed out in a ditch…his brains splattered all over the field…she’d no more be able to ferry his body home than she’d stand leaving it behind as she went for help.

It was Sunday; she’d go and meet Alice and Helen. Take them to the pictures. Listen to them grumble about their week. Loose herself in something other than…this. Whatever she found when she came back later could wait til then.

#

“…Rosie? Oi. Hello?”

Alice was poking her into the shoulder with the neck of her lemonade bottle. Rose looked around her in wonder. They were up on the balcony of the Scala, the three of them, in their favourite seats right by the balustrade. There were closing credits running on the screen and Rose’s insides felt like wet laundry.

“Am I boring you?” Alice asked.

Rose blinked her eyes, once, twice, trying to get herself back into herself. There wasn’t any room in amongst the laundry, it kept her hovering on the very edge of her skin.

“Never mind,” Alice snapped. “You’ve clearly got more important things on your mind. What was it? Which dress to wear for the next garden party? What book to read, while you kick up your heels on the lounge?”

“Shut up, Alice.”

Alice whipped around to face Helen, who was trying her best not to shrink from her furious stare.

“Come again?”

“I said, shut up,” Helen said quietly. “Look at her, she’s shakin’ all over.”

Rose looked down at herself in surprise. Helen was right. She hadn’t felt it, Rose, she couldn’t feel a thing from the shoulders down, not really; but her legs were bouncing up and down like she was running in her seat and her hands were trembling and half in fists, like she was shaking invisible marracas.

She looked back up and found Alice frowning at her.

“You orright?”

Rose tried to open her mouth and found her jaw had locked. Seized by an invisible hand, pressed together to the point of shattering her back teeth.

“Rosie?”

There wasn’t any air inside the fuckin’ theater. There were too many people in it, breathing it all away, sucking it in greedily and leaving nothing for Rose. She could feel her skin turning slick and clammy.

“Fuck…orright…” Alice was looking up and down their row of seats. “You’re orright, Rosie. Helen, you get the coats.”

There were bright lights dancing in the dark of the cinema and very, very faintly Rose could hear the title music of the next film coming on. There were hands under her arms now, dragging her from the seat.

“Come on,” Alice grunted. “Can you help a bit, a tiny bit just? Leave the fuckin’ food, Helen, Jaysis. Make those fuckers get up over there so we can get past.”

She was strong, Alice, you had to give her that. She very nearly carried Rose along the row, growling at anyone who dared to complain about them getting in the way. Once they were in the isle, Helen and Alice hooked Rose’s waist from either side and pulled her along, into the lobby, out on the street and round the corner.

“We’ll sit her down a minute,” Alice said decidedly. “Put a coat down – no, Christ alive, don’t put Rosie’s, it’s too nice – orright. Rosie? Rosie. You put your back against the wall and sit. Just sit.”

The wall was rough against the back of Rose’s head. It was a good kind of roughness though, it felt real enough to cut through the mad whooshing inside her, at least a little.

“Deep breaths,” Alice muttered next to her, very close by. “Deep breaths.”

Rose felt a faint tug at one end of her and looked down her arm, surprised to see Helen kneading her cramping hand between her fingers, trying to loosen them. She turned and there, on the other side, was Alice doing the same. Pins and needles were starting to fizz up towards Rose’s elbows.

“There you go…” Helen said, or maybe Alice. “That’s the way…Jaysis…”

One of them was poking at Rose’s lips with a cigarette and, once it was firmly stuck, a flame danced in front of her, heating the tip of her nose.

“Don’t set her face on fire,” Helen, definitely Helen, said sharply. “That’s the last thing we need.”

“Pull,” Alice commanded and Rose obediently sucked in a deep breath and proceeded to cough her lungs up.

“There you go…” Alice said, whacking her on the back gently. “There you go…”

“ ‘m sorry,” Rose croaked once the coughing had passed.

“Fuck off,” Alice said. “I’m the one, who should be sorry.”

“Are you?” Rose asked weakly.

“Ah…” Alice waggled her head a little and Helen thumped her on the shoulder rather hard. “Yea. I am, yea. Sorry.”

By the time the cigarette was gone, Rose could feel her legs enough to get upright, leaning against the wall.

“Will we walk down to the water?” Helen suggested.

“Can you make it that far, Rosie?” Alice asked.

“Yea…”

They linked arms with her and slowly marched her through the Sunday traffic until they were down by the cut, sitting under a bridge with their legs dangling over the edge.

“So,” Alice said after a while. “What was that about?”

Rose looked out over the canal, uncertain where to start.

“You can tell us,” Helen said softly. “Well, you can tell me, at any rate. Alice is too much of a bitch to be of help, eh?”

It was so rare for Helen to use any sort of language that Rose couldn’t help but grin.

“Fuck off, the pair of you,” Alice smiled. “Really but. What’s wrong?”

“I-“ Rose broke off.

They waited, Alice and Helen. Looked at her with faces she’d seen on all the good days she could remember, waiting for her to find the words.

“Me da’s gone mad,” Rose said finally.

“He’s always been a bit,” Alice pointed out.

“True,” Rose sighed. “But this is different.”

“Different how?” Helen asked.

“He scares me.” Saying it out loud seemed wrong and unreal and just off in all ways. “Makes me worry.”

“That he’ll hurt you?”

They were closer now, sitting right on either side of her, their shoulders nearly touching.

“No…not really…” Rose rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m scared he’ll…fuck…I saw him. He was goin’ to shoot himself. I fuckin’ saw him.”

“Ah, Jaysis…” Alice muttered next to her and Rose felt an arm drape around her shoulders. “For fuck’s sake…”

“I don’t know what to do…” Rose heard herself say. “I don’t. If…what’ll I do…if he does? What the fuck am I goin’ to do?”

“He might not,” Helen said. “He hasn’t yet. He didn’t when…when you saw him.”

“He was goin’ to-“

“But he didn’t,” Alice interrupted firmly. “Helen’s right. He might not.”

“I just can’t…” Rose drew her legs up and rested her forehead on her knees, “…I can’t not worry and when I do…it’s like my whole body disappears into it. Into the worry.”

She couldn’t look at them. She sounded fucking ridiculous.

“I’ve nightmares, when I sleep at all…and, uhm, I think I see things that aren’t there, when I’m awake. I think I do. Sometimes at night. I can’t really tell. It’s like I’m goin’ mad as well.”

Rose closed her eyes and waited for them to start laughing. For Alice to denounce her as a piss-weak gimlet, who’d do well to remember the problems of the rest of the world before she went and had a whinge.

“Well, fuck me.” Alice leaned in and put her head on Rose’s shoulder. “That’s no good.”

“No,” Rose said with a wet noise somewhere between and sob and a laugh. “It’s really not.”

“No good, mate,” Helen said in such an abysmal imitation of Billy that all three of them broke down in hysterical, much-needed giggles. “No good at all.”

Alice found another half-crushed cigarette in her pocket and they shared it, blowing the smoke out over the cut. Rose could feel all parts of her now.

“D’you get dizzy headaches?” Helen asked suddenly.

“Sort of, yea.”

“And d’you get all jumpy?”

“Sometimes…”

“Huh…” Helen nodded with a deeply pensive expression. “Sounds like nerves to me.”

“When’d you become a bloody doctor?” Alice asked. “What nerves?”

“Herself-“ Helen only ever referred to her employer as ‘herself “-she used to get the nerves really badly. She’d start gasping and couldn’t keep upright, like she was drowin’, it was awful. But then, see, she went and saw a doctor, a _specialist_. And she’s much better now.”

“Nerves?” Rose repeated uncertainly.

“That what she said. Awful stuff. And everything was bad for it,” Helen shook her head in sympathy. “The children being to noisy, people coming to be entertained, himself staying out late…anything at all and she’d be down for the count.”

Rose and Alice exchanged a skeptical look.

“What’d the doctor do?” Alice asked.

“Dunno,” Helen admitted. “Tonics, she takes those, but I don’t know that she didn’t before. It’s working though, whatever it is.”

“Yea?” Rose couldn’t quite wrap her head around this.

“It seems to be.” Helen shrugged. “I’ll get the name if you like. The doctor’s.”

“Orright,” Rose said uncertainly.

Alice scoffed.

“What?” Rose asked. “It can’t hurt, can it?”

“No,” Alice said. “But you’re not sick, Rosie. Anyone’d be worried if their old man was trying to, you know, do _that_. Maybe he needs his own nerves looked at.”

Rose raised an eyebrow.

“He’s the mad one,” Alice insisted. “If anyone needs a fuckin’ tonic, it’s him.”

Rose burst out laughing despite herself.

“That’d be right,” she giggled. “More tonic. On top of the bloody drink and the poppy juice – can you just imagine?”

“Orright, fine,” Alice said with a smirk. “A smack in the mouth then, how ‘bout that? Slap some sense into him.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Let’s go then.” Alice hopped up and started rolling up her coat sleeves dramatically. “Where is he? I’ll sort him out for you, the thick bastard. Givin’ you grief like this, good fuck. His own mother won’t know him when I’m done with him…”

It felt amazing to laugh, so very, very good. It was shaking all three of them now – Alice could bring the house down when she was in good form – and something that’d gotten stuck in between them was shaken loose, fell into the cut and sank to the bottom like a boulder.

“He’s armed and dangerous,” Rose pointed out in between fits of giggles. “And, you know…barkin’ fucking mad.”

“Fuck off,” Alice said grandly, once she’d composed herself a bit. “I eat the likes of Tommy Shelby for my breakfast.”

“Poor Mister Shelby,” Helen sighed, wiping her eyes. “He’s done for, eh, Rosie?”

“He should’ve thought of that earlier,” Alice said. “Before he fucked with my mate.”

And then, suddenly, Rose wasn’t quite sure how it’d happened, all three of them were standing with their arms round each other, laughing like a coven of witches and bawling their fuckin’ eyes out.


	16. Dancin' Monkeys

Ruby came storming into Rose’s room, every inch of her small body radiating indignation. Her mouth was set in a thin line, her arms crossed like she was in an invisible straight jacket, her cheeks and neck flushed with red splotches. Ruby, it was plain to see, had been subjected to a grave injustice. Possibly at the hands of Charlie. Rose put her book down, folded her hands and waited.

“It’s not fair,” Ruby announced.

“Is it not?”

“No, it isn’t.” Ruby scowled ferociously. “You get to come and we don’t.”

Rose didn’t sigh out loud, she didn’t even roll her eyes. But she did spare a thought for her father spending whole mornings at the pub listening to the constituency airing its grievances.

“We want to go as well, me and Charlie.”

“Where?” Rose asked.

“To the lake.”

“What lake?”

“The _lake_,” Ruby said in a tone that suggested Rose was being incredibly thick.

Sometimes, not always, you could disguise a sigh with a deep breath. Rose was quite good at this but Ruby’s eyes narrowed suspiciously nonetheless.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, Rubes,” Rose said.

“Mummy’s birthday,” Ruby groaned. “You’re all goin’ to the lake and we have to stay upstairs with Frances.”

“We’re not goin’-“

“Yes, you are,” Ruby interrupted. “You are. You’re goin’ to feed the ducks at the lake. Daddy said. Why can’t we come?”

“Is dad home?” Rose asked, genuinely surprised.

Ruby threw her hands up in exasperation and, for a moment, looked about forty years old.

“Why-“

“I don’t know why,” Rose said. “Is he in the office?”

“Yea,” her sister grumbled. “Go and tell him he’s to take us. We want to come.”

“Keep your hair on,” Rose muttered.

“Tell him-“

“I heard you.” Rose swung her legs out of bed and got up. “You want to come to the lake.”

“You tell him.” Ruby eyeballed Rose all the way to the door. “Now.”

“Yes, Miss Ruby,” Rose said with a curtsy. “Right away, Miss Ruby.”

“Good.”

Ruby dropped down on Rose’s rug, legs crossed, frown in place.

“You’ll wait here, will you?”

“Yea.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I will.”

Rose managed to keep the grin off her face until she was safely in the hallway. She’d be a force to be reckoned with, Ruby, when she came into her own; if the company weathered the current crisis, it’d be in good hands with her.

She stopped outside the office door and listened for a moment; only knocking when she was sure there was nothing to interrupt.

“Come.”

The desk was covered in lose pages, some of them held down with thick leather-bound volumes of dense looking books.

“Speechwriting?” Rose asked, lingering near the door in case he told her to bugger off and let him work.

“Yea.”

Tommy had his glasses in one hand and was massaging his bridge of his nose with the other.

“What about?”

“Impatience and frustration.”

“Stick with what you know, eh?” Rose said with a grin.

He glanced up at her, his eyes tired but somewhat clear, gave a morose sort of grin of his own and motioned for her to take a seat. They’d avoided each other for the better part of a week; enough time for all their anger to seep into the office walls and disappear.

“What can I do for you then, Rosie?” Tommy reached for the ashtray.

“I’m here as a delegate for the resident minors,” Rose announced.

His lips twitched around his cigarette.

“Regarding what?” he asked.

“You see,” Rose leaned forward in her chair and bit and rested her hands on his desk, “my constituents have expressed some displeasure about your policies. They find them-“ she smiled apologetically while searching for the words “less inclusive than they would have hoped.”

“Which policies are you referring to exactly?” He was enjoying himself now, Rose could tell.

“My most junior associate has come to me with complaints about an attendance ban to your upcoming festivities, imposed on grounds of age,” she explained.

“This is a long-standing policy,” Tommy pointed out. “There have been no objections to previous occasions.”

“This is true,” Rose said. “However, sir, my associate appears to be under the impression that you are planning an excursion and feels unjustly excluded.”

“An excursion?” Her father raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed. She…uhm…” Rose couldn’t quite think how to rephrase the next bit. “May I speak plainly?”

“By all means.”

“Ruby thinks we’re going to feed ducks at a lake.”

For a moment, Tommy looked genuinely confused.

“Yea,” Rose said. “I know.”

“Ducks?”

“Ducks.” Rose nodded. “At ‘the lake’.”

Understanding swept over her father’s face so suddenly, it loosened his features to the point of actually smiling.

“Your associate has misunderstood,” he said.

“I gathered,” Rose said drily. “However, I’m not certain I myself quite understand. What, if you don’t mind me asking, is on the agenda?”

“Swan Lake.”

Rose frowned.

“Where’s that?”

Tommy closed his eyes and heaved a sigh.

“What?” Rose asked.

“It’s not a place,” her father said. “It’s a ballet.”

“Eh?”

“You know what ballet is, don’t you?” The question was dripping in exasperation.

“Yea,” Rose said. “Dancin’.”

He sighed again and she gave him her most pleasant smile.

“Bein’ a philistine’s nothing to be proud of, chavi,” he said.

Rose ignored this.

“So, youse are goin’ to the ballet for Lizzie’s birthday present?” she asked.

“No, Rosie,” Tommy said, fishing a lighter from his pocket. “They’re comin’ here, the ballet company.”

“Yea, right,” Rose scoffed. “They’ll be bringin’ a stage and all, will they?”

“Yes.” Tommy watched her over the glowing tip of his cigarette, his face perfectly relaxed.

“Have them set up on the drive, will we?”

“Nah,” her father said dismissively. “They’ll be in a tent round the back.”

Rose very nearly burst out laughing, she just barely forced it down. The longer you kept your face straight, the longer the game could go on.

“A giant teepee,” she said solemnly. “Made from mammoths’ hide. It’s the very latest thing, you know?”

Tommy lowered his cigarette.

“You’ll be needing a dress,” he said.

“Bostin’,” Rose beamed. “Can it be from mammoths’ hide, as well? To match the tent?”

“So long as it’s decent,” her father said. “You’ll take care of that with Ada and Lizzie when you’re down in London.”

“And-“ Rose broke off and eyed Tommy suspiciously.

“And what, my little love?” he asked after a while.

They were meant to go to London, Lizzie and Rose, they were meant to be going in a couple of days. They’d never done something like that, gone away just the two of them. Dress shopping had been mentioned, as well, but it hadn’t occurred to Rose that they’d be getting a dress for _her_. It was possible, of course. And if her father wasn’t messing about this, he might not be about the other things either.

“Are you _serious_?” Rose asked.

“I am, yea.”

“You’re not,” Rose challenged. “You can’t have a ballet dancing in a tent.”

Her father leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his chest.

“It’s a very nice tent,” he said.

He wasn’t joking.

“But that’s…it’s…” Rose was struggling to find the appropriate adjective. “That’s fuckin’ preposterous.”

“Why’s that?” He wasn’t even trying to conceal his amusement.

“Won’t they feel stupid, the dancers? When there’s only a couple of people watching?”

“So what if they do?”

“It’s too strange.”

“It’s nothing,” her father said. “Bit of dancing, bit of a show. People throw parties with monkeys waiting on the guests.”

“They do not,” Rose exclaimed.

“Chimpanzees.” He was grinning, or something like that, at her utter disbelief rather than the memory.

“They’re not monkeys,” Rose pointed out, “they’re apes. And it’s not true. Is it?”

Tommy nodded.

“Why?”

“ ‘cause they can,” he said pleasantly. “And they want it to be known that they can.”

“Chimpanzees but?”

“Once in a while,” her father said, “you’ve got to make a bit of a display, to show you’re still in the game.”

“To show who?”

“Whoever needs to know.”

Rose sighed and leaned back in her own seat.

“So, it’s not really for Lizzie then, is it?” she asked. “It’s for whoever needs to know we’ve not gone broke.”

“It’s for the good of the family,” Tommy said. “Lizzie’s part of the family. So are you.”

“But…do I have to be there?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“But-“

“You’re not a little girl anymore, Rosie.” Her father reached for a glass resting in between his papers and swilled the contents absentmindedly. “It’s not enough anymore that you know to hold your own out on the street with your mates. It’s not long til your presence at these sorts of events is going to be expected. High time to learn how to conduct yourself in polite society.”

“Higher stakes, higher standards?” Rose asked.

“Spot on.” Tommy drained his glass.

“What are the standards?”

“Aha…” he was pleased she’d asked, he’d that sort of look. “That’s what you’re there to learn. You watch, you listen, you learn.”

“Learn to act all posh?”

“No.” Her father’s eyes were stuck on her own now, in that way that made it impossible to look elsewhere. “To learn that they’ve nothing on you. To see through the smoke and mirrors. And to not let them get the better of you when they’re trying it on.”

“Why would they try it on?” Rose asked as haughtily as she could manage. “I’m the daughter of the house, am I not?”

A smile flickered across her father’s face.

“Of more houses than one,” he said. “And the sooner you learn to use that to your advantage, the better. D’you understand me?”

“I think so.”

“Good girl, Rosie.” Tommy picked up his glasses and started rifling through his papers. “Now, if you could explain to your associates that the upcoming occasion is no better suited for children than it is for ducks, I’d be much obliged.”

Rose already had one foot out the door when she stopped and turned.

“Da?”

“Yes, my little love?”

“Is it too late do book dancin’ monkeys instead of the ballet?”

“Ah, Rosie,” he sighed, not looking up from his papers, “there’ll be more dancin’ monkeys that you’ll care to count.”


	17. Ladies' Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. This one took forever. FOREVER. Please let me know your thoughts, I'm all insecure about this bit. But it's out of the way now and - ominous strings - the ballet is next.

Rose didn’t realise she was walking into an ambush before she was trapped in a changeroom, up to her knees in piles of shimmering fabric, and it was too late to make a run for it.

“How’s the blue?” Ada called from the other side of the partition.

“Stupid.”

She could hear Lizzie bursting out laughing. She’d been in good form, Lizzie, her mood lightening with every mile they put between themselves and the big house. It’d been a bit awkward, for the first bit, just the two of them in the back of the car.

“D’you not feel like reading after all?” Lizzie had finally asked, nodding at the book Rose was holding on her lap like a small dog.

“Would you mind?” Rose asked back.

It felt strangely rude to disappear into a story, like she was ignoring Lizzie. Like she didn’t want her company. Maybe because she’d done it to Grace so many times; camped out in the same room as her, barricaded behind a book and refusing the acknowledge any attempts at conversation with anything more than a grunt.

“You need a break as much as I do,” Lizzie said. “You do whatever it is you want, orright?”

“What’ll you do?” Rose asked.

They’d a couple of hours ahead of them after all.

“I’m going to close my eyes and remember that this-“ Lizzie waved a hand at the inside of the car in general, “-used to be the stuff of my dreams.”

Rose suspected that Lizzie had fallen asleep for a fair bit of their journey and that she’d had sweet dreams; every time Rose glanced over at her, there was a shadow of a smile dancing on Lizzie’s silent lips.

Now though, now that she knew there’d been a plot to torture her with garments, Rose imagined Lizzie might have been dreaming about that.

“Come out and show us, Rosie,” she called now, when she’d composed herself.

“No.”

“Go on,” Ada coaxed. “At the very least come and see yourself properly in the mirror.”

“I can see enough,” Rose grumbled.

“Don’t be such a spoil sport,” Lizzie said. “We want to see.”

“Oh, so you can have a laugh at me lookin’ a right tit,” Rose called, muffled through a mouthful of fabric, trapped in a dress she couldn’t quite get off.

“You’re bein’ a pain in the arse,” Ada huffed. “Pol always said she’d grow out of it,” she added for Lizzie’s benefit. “I never bought it, though. And now look, couple months shy of fifteen and gettin’ into a strop at the shops.”

“I’ll give you stroppy in a minute,” Rose threatened. “Just…can you bring me something black?”

“Certainly not,” Lizzie said.

“Why?” Rose whined.

“Because you’re too young and it’s not me funeral, it’s me bloody birthday.”

“Black’s elegant but.”

Even Rose had to concede that she was getting dangerously close to genuine tantrum territory.

“Right.”

There was some rustling on the other side and then the partition was pushed back rather violently, leaving Rose clutching the blue dress to her neck and glaring daggers.

“There you are.” Ada thrust something silvery grey at her.

Rose snatched the dress off her and, when it became apparent that her aunt wasn’t going anywhere, backed into the furthest corner of the change room and slipped the dress over her head. It fell like water, wrapping her into its sparkling waves.

“Come here…”

Ada took hold of her bare arm and pulled her out until Rose was in front of the full-length mirror.

“Oh, look at you,” Lizzie said behind them.

Rose obeyed reluctantly. Apart from the fact that she’d her stockings bunching round her ankles and her hair was flat on one side and sticking up on the other as a result of too many dresses being pulled up and down, she looked like a complete stranger. There was something about the top of the dress that made her shoulders look broader, something about the colour of the whole thing that sang of knights in shining armour. It was a dress for battle.

“That’s the one,” Ada announced.

Rose couldn’t stop looking at herself. She couldn’t make up her mind. She was either a little kid playing dress-ups or a full-grown woman owning the world. It was impossible to decide; she was balancing right between the two. Lizzie and Ada appeared in the mirror behind her, framing her like adjutants before a duel. Rose half expected one of them to hand her a pistol or, better yet, a broad sword.

“Put your chin up a bit,” Lizzie said quietly.

It made her neck longer, when she did, and deepened the dips of her collar bones. Summer had been and gone for so long, Rose’s arms had grown pale and her freckles so faded they looked like pebbles at the bottom of a creek.

“D’you like it, Rosie?” Ada asked.

“Ah…yea, maybe…a bit?” Rose looked from one woman to the other and back again. “I look Pol though, don’t I?”

“You do not,” Ada said.

“No, she’s right,” Lizzie said. “You look just like her, Rosie. Proud and wild and dangerous.”

Rose’s eyes found Lizzie’s in the mirror.

“Me da’s going to fuckin’ hate this,” she said.

“You’re not wrong.” Lizzie smiled. “But he’ll live. Jesus, though. You look beautiful.”

She was tearing up, Lizzie; Rose couldn’t quite grasp why, but it made her feel as though she should apologise. For what exactly, she had no idea.

“Ah, fuck, now you’ve set me off…”

Rose whipped around and just caught Ada dabbing her eye. They’d gone mad, both of them.

“Don’t you start, the pair of you,” Rose said pleadingly. “You’ve had your fun. Now, can we please go eat?”

“What d’you fancy?” Ada asked, with only just the tiniest glitter of tears left. “Scones?”

“Fuck that,” Lizzie said, clapping her hands together and clearing her throat. “Real food’s what’s needed, come on.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” Rose grinned and raced to get changed.

#

Ada walked them away from the high street, round a couple of corners and through a door sporting a hand-written sign, well a piece of plywood at any rate, with the word _lunch_ written in white chalk. It seemed like the sort of place that didn’t really cater to ladies with fur collars and sparkling earrings, but no one batted an eye when they walked in. The place was absolutely hopping, but Ada spotted a table in the very corner where a bunch of young women were packing up their cigarettes and hand mirrors, getting ready to get back to the office.

Rose followed slowly, trying to work out what exactly this was. It wasn’t a pub, it didn’t have a bar. It was like a flat without walls and a kitchen out the back, full with the craziest mix of people Rose had seen in an age. There were men ingrained with factory grime sharing tables with starched and ironed office workers; a gang of postmen all bent over the sports section of the paper; a couple of fellas who’d parked their top hats next to their pint glasses, secretaries, tradies, students… everyone was here.

“Stout or tea?” asked a lady balancing a tray of empty stacked bowl and glasses.

“Stout, please,” Rose smiled.

“In your dreams,” said Ada. “Stout times two and cuppa, please.”

Lizzie had barely time to light a cigarette before there drinks arrived, alongside three steaming bowls of stew. It was brown and thick and smelled spectacularly good.

Rose hadn’t eaten a stew in years. It stopped her dead, spoon halfway to her mouth, when she realised. _Years_. They never had it, not at the big house at any rate; Tommy wouldn’t allow it. He’d banned the eating of stew, the same way he’d banned the wearing of stockings that had been mended and the borrowing books from lending libraries. If you wanted to read a book, you bought the fuckin’ book, he’d explained to Rose, and if the stocking had a hole in the maid was welcome to fix it and wear it herself, if she so chose. As for stew, it was nothing more than whatever offcuts and fouling produce had been left over once the upper crust had had their pickings – apparently – and there wasn’t a chance that any Shelby would ever again taste even a mouthful.

It was a shame her father had to be so dramatic, because you really couldn’t knock a good stew. There’d been a few illicit stew evenings, mostly at uncle Arthur’s when he’d just met Linda and the great domestication was newly underway; but they’d been far and few between. Rose’s spoon travelled the rest of the way and the stew draped itself over her jagged insides like a warm blanket.

“Bloody hell, that’s nice,” Ada sighed next to her and Lizzie hummed her approval, chewing slowly.

“Amazin’,” Rose agreed through a hot mouthful of god-knew-what and melting potato.

For a while the three of them sat and ate in greedy and delighted silence. Rose dispatched of her food before Ada and Lizzie had even gotten half-way through theirs.

“Where do you put it?” Ada asked, shaking her head in wonder.

“What?” Rose said a bit defensively. “It’s good.”

“Is it beef, you reckon?” Lizzie was stirring and examining the contents of her bowl with mild interest.

“Who cares?” Rose grinned. “I can’t tell what we’re having half the time when they feed us at the big house.”

“Ah, go on…” Ada cocked her head.

“I’m not joking,” Rose said. “They’ve been cooking up every animal under the sun, I’m telling you. Buffaloes and ostriches and all sorts. Tell her Lizzie.”

Lizzie sighed and rolled her eyes.

“It’s been on the exotic side,” she said vaguely.

“On the exotic side?” Rose exclaimed. “If he could get zebras shipped over, we’d have them for Sunday roast. Or polar bears. It’s not normal.”

“Ah, look. What’s normal?” Ada asked.

“This.” Rose nodded towards her empty bowl. “This is normal. This is normal food.”

“Been resetting the bar again, has he?” Ada took a deep swig from her pint.

“In some ways,” Lizzie said with a shrug. “You understand it though, Rosie, don’t you? You know why he’s doing these things?”

“ ‘cause he’s trying to chop his life in half,” Rose said darkly. “His own and everyone else’s.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ada said.

“It’s true though,” Rose insisted. “It’s like anything that’s come before we got all moneyed up has to be burned and forgotten. If he could stuff all of Small Heath into a caravan and set it on fire, he would.”

Lizzie leaned back and lit another cigarette, a crease deepening between her eyebrows.

“You know, Rosie,” Ada said slowly, “being nostalgic is as much a symptom of privilege than having an ostrich for dinner.”

“I’m not being nostalgic,” Rose snapped.

“Yea,” Lizzie said. “Yea, you are.”

“So what if I am?” Rose frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with remembering the good bits, surely? And anyway, it’s not like he’s happy now. It’s not like he’s enjoying his ostrich. Or anything else.”

She looked up and found Lizzie and Ada staring at her in the strangest way.

“What?” she asked. “What’s the point of being able to afford a roast kangaroo or whatnot, if it’s not going to make you happy?”

Ada and Lizzie exchanged a glance.

“What?” Rose asked again.

“Nothing,” Ada said. “I’ve asked myself the same question, loads of times.”

“Have you worked it out?” Rose asked hopefully.

“No,” Ada said with a desperate little laugh. “You’ll be the second to know if I do.”

#

Rose spent the afternoon getting her arse handed to her by her cousin Karl over many rounds of chess, while drinking endless cups of tea. Ada and Lizzie disappeared into Ada’s office upstairs for a while – company business, Rose was told – and returned just as dusk was falling, carrying a wooden box covered in a thin layer of dust and a bottle of gin.

“What’s that?” Karl asked.

Ada set the box down next to the phonograph in the corner and lifted the lid. Rose pushed herself to her knees to see better.

“Are they yours from ages ago?” she asked when she saw the records. 

“Yea,” Ada beamed. “Found them in Pol’s attic a while ago.”

“Let’s have a look then.” Lizzie bent over the box and started flicking through. “Oh, _A Perfect Day_, put that on, will you?”

“Is that in there?”

Lizzie held up the record and Ada snapped it up, an expression on her face Rose hadn’t seen since the days of secret dancing at number six. It was ancient and crackled like nobody’s business, but you could still hear the tune, if you applied yourself.

“Hang on…” Rose looked up at her aunt and found her already half-dancing. “That’s…”

“D’you remember this, Rosie?” Ada asked, before joining in over the crackles and scrapes. “_Do you think what the end of a perfect day can mean to a tired heart…_”

“_…when the sun goes down in a flaming ray…”_ Rose stopped herself. “I thought you made it up?”

“What? The song?”

“Yea.”

Lizzie, who was tapping her feet absentmindedly over by the fire place turned and gave Rose an amused look.

“Why’d you think that?” she asked.

“ ‘cause she’d sing it for us, like a lullaby, I s’pose,” Rose said, blushing slightly. “She sang it all the time…well, when she could be arsed at any rate.”

“I wouldn’t have picked you for a bedtime singer, Ada,” Lizzie said.

“She’d sit on the magic drawer, pretending it was a piano,” Rose said, a grin spreading at the memory. “In Polly’s Chinese dressing gown.”

“I did not,” Ada protested. “That thing, bloody hell, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in it.”

“And you did the other one…” Rose was up on her feet now and beelining for the box. “_Don’t wake me up, I’m dreamin’_…is that in there as well?”

“It might be…” Ada dove into the box and for a moment she looked so young, so much like Rose’s earliest memories of her.

“Oh, Rosie…” Lizzie was next to her, draping an arm around her shoulder, a glass in her free hand. “Are you gettin’ sentimental?”

“Fuck off,” Rose sniffed, but she didn’t shrug Lizzie’s arm away. “It’s just…”

“What, Rosie?” Ada asked, looking up with both hands still on the records.

“It’s just been a really long ten years…”

They were laughing, wiping their eyes and looking up towards the ceiling.

“Oi,” Lizzie croaked, “no bawlin’ allowed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose caught sight of Karl backing away, leaving the half-finished game of chess and the room full of madwomen. Poor thing. He practically dived through the door and they could hear him fleeing up the steps.

They sank down in the chairs around the fire place, the upholstery stiff and too new for comfort, but it would have to do. Ada draped herself over her seat as best she could, extending a leg and striking a rather dramatic pose to the last bit of the song. Rose leaned forward and nicked her aunt’s glass of gin from the floor. No one objected.

“In the red dressing gown,” Rose told Lizzie. “She’d sit just like that. In the red dressing gown – yes, you did – on the magic drawer.”

“Why was it magic?” Lizzie asked.

“ ‘cause it’d walk around in the night.” Rose took a sip and felt a slow burn run down her throat. “It walked over the whole house, but it liked to sleep in front of the bedroom door best.”

Lizzie shot Ada a glance.

“Pol used to barricade the door at night,” Ada explained. “Push the drawer in front and go to sleep with a gun under her pillow.”

“Yea, I know.” Rose rolled her eyes.

“Your being nostalgic again.”

“I’m not-“

“We were sleeping four to a room with a fuckin’ chest of drawers in front of the door to buy time in case anyone came in the night,” Ada interrupted. “We’d be jumping at every noise some nights, Polly and me, and then in the morning this one-“ she pointed at Rose accusingly, “- would wake up and be just so…_delighted_. That there’d been magic in the night.”

“I can imagine,” Lizzie said.

“But now, of course, our Rosie’s loveliest memories are of a terrible time,” Ada smiled sadly.

“It wasn’t terrible,” Rose said.

“It was,” Ada insisted.

“I know…but it wasn’t for me,” Rose said softly. “It’s only ever as bad as you think it is, no matter what it’s like for everyone else.”

They were looking at her very strangely again, Ada and Lizzie.

“It’s true,” she said. “And I’m lucky, aren’t I? It’d be much worse if you were seeing only the bad things, remembering only the bad things. Like-“

She broke off and swallowed the rest of the words down with more gin.

“Like what?” Lizzie asked after a while.

“Like me da,” Rose said like she was ripping off a bandage.

“Ah, bloody hell,” Ada sighed. “Right. You’ve noticed then?”

“Of course she’s bloody noticed.” Lizzie beat Rosie by a mile. “Poor thing’s been dodging his moods for months. Listening to him go off.”

“Now, Rosie,” Ada said, looking at her intently. “You’ve to understand that he’s not…he doesn’t act the way he does…he can’t help it. Not right now.”

“ ‘cause of his nerves?” Rose asked.

“How d’you mean?”

“Nerves,” Rose repeated. “That’s what’s wrong when people act all…strange, isn’t it? Because their nerves are all shot to bits.”

“Something like that,” Lizzie said.

“There’s a doctor,” Rose went on, licking her dry, gin-flavoured lips. “A Doctor Brooks, in Mayfair-“

“How on earth d’you know that?” Ada asked, genuinely aghast.

“D’you remember Helen Jones?” Rose asked.

“Your mate Helen goes to Doctor Brooks?” Ada would have been less incredulous if Rose had told her she’d been referred by a chicken.

“ ‘course not,” Rose groaned. “The lady she works for does. She’s feeling much better now. But, see, they don’t let you make appointments unless you’re of age and-“

“How d’you know that?” Lizzie asked sharply.

“Well, see…” Rose had said too much and realised too late. “I called, I tried to-“

“For Tommy?” Ada asked, her eyebrows all the way at her hairline.

“No?” Rose said uncertainly. “For…well…for myself?”

“Ah, Rosie…why?”

“ ‘cause I can’t stop bein’ worried.” Rose downed the rest of the gin and wished she could hide in the empty glass.

“About your dad?” Lizzie asked.

“Yea.”

So, there it was. Again. For the second time in a month the cards were on the table and Rose chewed nervously on a nail, waiting to see which ones would be picked up.

“The fuckin’ ejit,” Ada sighed. “Rosie, listen…”

“I mean,” Rose interrupted, suddenly gripped by a strange sort of fear, “he’s not always that bad, really, is he, Lizzie? We had a very nice talk, we really did, just a couple of days ago and, you know, that’s good, isn’t it? It’s better? A bit better at any rate? Maybe if I-“

“Stop, sweetheart, stop,” Ada cut in gently.

“It’s just…I can’t find the right words,” Rose persisted. “To make him-“

“It’s not your words,” Lizzie said. “It’s his ears, if anything.”

“What? He’s gone deaf now?” Rose asked, exasperated.

“In a way,” Lizzie said helplessly. “You’re not doing anything wrong, d’you hear me? It’s not you.”

“What is it?” Rose asked, pleaded, really.

“It’s hard to say,” Ada said. “It’s too many things to be able to say for sure what’s what. But Lizzie’s right. It’s not your job to fix him.”

“It isn’t,” Lizzie said firmly. “And shame on anyone who makes you feel that it is.”

“But I keep annoying him,“ Rose blurted out suddenly. “I don’t mean to, but-“

“Rosie,” Ada shifted in her chair and fixed her with a stare. “You’re grand. He couldn’t ask for better. No one could. And I tell you one thing, if my daughter turns out half as gutsy and clever as you, I’ll be dancing for joy.”

Rose’s jaw dropped a little.

“Your what now?” she asked once she had control of her face again.

Ada smiled, a little sideways but bright nonetheless.

“Are you-“ Rose was practically standing on her seat now. “Since when? Why didn’t you say? You’re a cow! Why’d you keep it a secret?”

“It’s early days.”

“And it’s a girl, for definite?”

“Pol says,” Ada grinned. “Said to call her Elizabeth.”

“How’s it that Polly gets to name everyone?” Rose asked, dropping back in her chair.

“She doesn’t.”

“She named our Ruby,” Rose pointed out.

“She didn’t name you,” Ada countered.

“Who did then? Me mum?”

“Tommy did,” Ada said. “Greta wanted to name you Katherine, for her sister. But he insisted you were going to be Rose.”

“Why?”

“You ask him,” Ada said.

“What if he won’t tell me?”

“Then you ask him again another time,” Lizzie said. “You keep asking, til he answers.”

“Or til he gets sick of me,” Rose said drily.

“He’s sick of many things,” Lizzie said. “But he’ll never be sick of you, not for as long as he lives.”

Rose leaned back and stared at the fire until Ada put on another record and the three of them floated away on the scraping tunes. Like birds. Or witches. All of them together. Each lost in their own thoughts.   



	18. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said the ballet was next...and it sort of is. Sorry, I swear this is the last bit before we get down to business.

They left Tommy and Lizzie to their cigarettes and guest lists, and went to take a look at the tent after dinner, Ruby and Charlie and Rose. There’d been people in and out all day putting it up, lugging bits of platform and chairs and strings and strings of lights. 

The pillars holding up the centre had been wrapped with bulbs and wire, it made them look like tree trunks. Ruby gripped onto the back of Rose’s shirt, giggling nervously.   
  
“All was quiet in the deep dark wood…” Rose growled in a deep, scratched-up voice.   
  
“Don’t!” Ruby squealed.   
  
“Too scary, is it?” Rose asked.  
  
“No,” Ruby said indignantly. “Just too dark.”  
  
“I know…” Charlie broke away from the pack and disappeared into the dark further down the end. They could hear him knocking into chairs and there was the disconcerting clatter of metal on wooden floor.

“Charlie,” Rose called out. “Charlie, don’t fuckin’ break anything –“

The lights came on and the deep dark wood turned into the enchanted forest. They’d done a good job, the lads putting it all together for tomorrow night, it looked like something out of a dream.

“Bloody hell…” Ruby gasped in absolute awe.

“Good, eh?” Charlie reappeared, beaming proudly.

“How’d you know where it turns on?” Rose asked. 

“He showed me when I was watching,” Charlie said. “One of the men. There’s a lever.”

They sat down on the edge of the stage and lay back, looking up at the sparkle above them. 

“I wish we could see the dancin’,” Ruby said for the umpteenth time. 

“If you ask again, he’ll sell you to the circus,” Rose sighed. 

“Yea,” Charlie said. “And then you’ll have to stand on a board and get knives thrown at you every day.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Ruby said gamely. 

“You wouldn’t, would you…” Rose shook her head. “I tell you what though, Rubes, you wouldn’t like the dancin’, it’s a horrible story.”

Frances, bless her, had obtained an ancient program for a long-finished production of Swan Lake at some long-closed theater.

“It won’t do if you make a show of yourself,” she’d told Rose as she handed her the frayed booklet. “Best to be prepared.”

Rose had rolled her eyes and then read the whole think front to cover as soon as Frances was out of sight. It seemed an odd choice, to say the least; from what she’d read they weren’t exactly in for an evening of good cheer. 

“How can you dance a story?” Charlie asked. 

“How should I know?” Rose groaned. “I’ve not seen it yet, have I?”

“How does it go?” Ruby asked. 

It really was a blow to Ruby that she wasn’t allowed to come down for the party; she’d been annoyed about ever since she’d worked out she was missing something special. It seemed only fair to toss her a bone, so to speak. 

“Right…” Rose hopped up and off the stage, did a lap of the tent and returned to her siblings bearing a white tablecloth that had been used to cover a large box of glassware in the corner, and a fist-full of some sort of tinsel, silvery white stuff they’d wrapped around the top rafters to make everything shimmer from all angles. “Rubes, take a seat. Front row, eh?”

Ruby squealed and obliged. 

“Charlie, come here,” Rose commanded.

“Why?” 

“ ‘cause you’re the prince. Come on.”

Charlie, to his credit, came on with minimal protest and allowed Rose to wind some of the tinsel around his head. 

“Now…” Rose stepped aside and appraised her handiwork. “I’ll tell the story and you just…I don’t know…you dance. Dance like you’re doin’ the things in the story.”

“What?”

“You’ll work it out,” Rose grinned. 

“Start!” Ruby roared from her seat.

“Quiet in the cheap seats,” Rose roared back. 

“These are the expensive seats,” Ruby shot back without missing a beat.

“In that case…” Rose cleared her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen! We’ve the extravagant pleasure of presenting to you a very, very exclusive performance – one evening only and limited to an audience of one. Will you kindly hold onto your hats, pull up your socks and open your eyes wide to sad, sad tale of love, loss and betrayal.”

“Am I s’posed to be dancing this?” Charlie asked.

“No, not yet, shut up,” Rose hissed and Ruby dissolved into giggles. “Now. Once upon a time – dance, Charles – a prince went out hunting with his mates on the night before his birthday. He was annoyed, the prince- “ Charlie was scowling deeply, circling the stage with an invisible bow and arrow at the ready “- because the next night, at his birthday party, he would have to choose a princess to marry…”

Rose was spreading the table cloth on the stage.

“He went down to the lake, the prince, and there he saw a bunch of girls, beautiful girls, dancing in the moonlight.”

“Are you the beautiful girls?” Charlie asked. 

“I…ah…”

“If I’ve to do it, you’ve to do it.”

“Jaysis, fine.”

Rose raised her hands over her head, the way she envisioned a ballerina might and started twirling around the table cloth lake. Ruby fell off her chair, bursting her shite laughing. Rose was many things, but a dancer she was not, never mind a graceful kind of dancer. 

“They’re dancing round and round and then-“ Rose snatched up the lake and wrapped it around herself, “they all turn into swans before the prince’s very eyes – frighten him so much he nearly soils himself…” 

Charlie performed such a grotesque pantomime of having the shite frightened out of him, Rose nearly came off the stage because she didn’t want to stop watching him.   
It wasn’t ideal conditions, performing all of Swan Lake as a duo with nothing but a table cloth, admittedly, but Rose and Charlie did their level best. The dancing was nothing short of average, though Charlie wasn’t half-bad, he was giving it a red-hot go; Rose, however, brought down the standard considerably. To be fair, dancing with no music while talking non-stop was much harder than it might have looked. 

Ruby, needless to say, was having the time of her life. 

“…and then,” Rose called out over the thumping of Charlie, running in place, trying to make it to the lake before it was too late, “she’s tearing into the water, weeping and angry and-“

She broke off and froze. 

Tommy was standing under the curve of the entryway, hands in pockets, creased with a slight frown. The tablecloth slowly slid off Rose’s shoulders and pooled beneath her; Charlie, his head aflame with tinsel, had stilled behind her, panting slightly from his sprint. Ruby was gaping up at them, eyes wide, waiting for the show to go on.

“And what’s it you think you’re doing?” 

“Drownin’ in a lake of my mother’s tears.”

He became very still, her father, his eyes much bigger than Ruby’s all of a sudden and deeper than any lake of tears. 

“Come watch.” Ruby had turned around and was kneeling on her chair. 

“Nah, Rubes,” Rose said quickly. “Limited to an audience of one, remember?”

“But I won’t know the ending then.”

“Just-“

“I’ll tell you the ending.”

They watched Tommy come down the aisle towards the stage and for a bizarre moment Rose wondered if grooms felt this sort of dizzy apprehension when their brides were marched towards them and all they could do was wait, because bolting would have been really bad form.   
Tommy sat down on the edge of the stage and cleared his throat. There was hardly any blue in his eyes, Rose noticed, but it might well have been the lights in the tent. 

“So,” he said. “The prince catches up with the girl at the edge of the lake-“

“Daddy?” Charlie interrupted.

“Yes, my boy?”

“Should we still do the dancing? While you tell it?”

“No, you’re orright.” 

Charlie climbed off the stage, his crown still in place and took a seat next to Ruby and, after an awkward moment of disentangling her feet from the tablecloth, Rose joined them. And there they sat, looking up at their father bathed in the fairy lights of the tent.

“Right. He catches her up and the edge of the lake and he grabs her and shakes her,” Tommy wasn’t looking at them, he was looking somewhere far away. “Pleads with her, explains and grovels. He didn’t know. He thought it was her, the girl he told the court he’d marry. He’d have never done such a thing if he’d known – he’s been tricked. By magic. She’s furious and injured and insulted and heartbroken all at once, but then, once the prince starts to cry and she seems just how desperate he is, just how deeply, deeply sorry…she relents. And they sit and she listens and she believes. They’re entwined now, holding onto each other and they’re so, so happy that they’ve found each other again, after all that confusion. But they’re also raw with pain. Because what’s done is done, the prince has to marry the other girl come morning.”

Rose had to hand it to him, he knew how to tell a story, how to keep his audience enthralled. This was what he did for a living now, really, wasn’t it. Speak. Speak at great length. He’d only fallen out of the habit when he was off-duty; he could still do it.

“Why does he?” Ruby asked.

“Because he’s given his word,” their father said solemnly. “He’s announced his intention in front of all the court, he’s told his advisors and his subjects and the girl’s father. And once you’ve said you’ll do something, and if you’ve more witnesses than you can silence, you have to follow through. He knows and the swan-girl knows, too, and so, in his arms, she dies of a broken heart.”

“So, does he marry the other girl then?” Charlie asked with a frown. 

“No,” Rose said, her hands and feet crawling with a familiar tingling. “That’s not what happens.”

“That’s right,” Tommy said. “See, Charlie boy, the prince only has to keep his word if he wishes to save his reputation, the integrity of his court and the family honour. But, as it happens, to the prince even a dead swan in better than that.”

Rose pulled her legs up onto the seat and wrapped her arms around them. Sitting like she had every time Jimmy Lee had told a ghost story on the road, trying to shield herself from certain and imminent terror. 

“The prince throws himself into the lake and as the swans swim away, the prince and the swan-girl disappear into eternity together.” Rose was peering at her father over the tops of her knees, trying to work out how a smile could look so terrifying. “But-“ Tommy held up a finger to stop any early applause, “- what it does, their slipping away, is it breaks the spell. So all the other swans turn back into girls and get to live as they please to the end of their days.”

The tent was vibrating around Rose as if a storm had broken loose outside, shaking the tarps and ripping at the ropes. 

“Right, come on.” Her father clapped her hands and the tent stopped its shivering. “Time for bed, the lot of you.”

“But we’re not tired,” Ruby complained.

“Maybe so,” Tommy said. “But I am.”


	19. Act I

Rose fought the impulse to burst into song, all the long way down the big staircase. There was something about descending vast and sweeping steps, dressed as she was, running her gloved hand along the bannister, small silvery flower pins all through her hair; it made a girl feel like a film star making a grand entrance.  
  
It was nearly a pity that there wasn’t a crowd to witness it. The guests were already milling around in the big room used for entertaining, Rose could hear their beehive murmurs through the open doorways. Then again, she might have gotten nervous, gotten tangled up in the length of dress stroking her legs, and come tumbling down the stairs in an avalanche of dress and hairclips.

Still, it seemed a waste not to be seen at all. Rose slowed her steps and waited until she could hear a car door slam shut out on the drive.  
  
Slowly and deliberately, Rose continued her descent; timing it rather nicely, she thought. By the time the silken scarfed, top-hatted fella was standing in the entry hall, she had only three steps to go. And she made each of them count. He was looking; admittedly, there was fuck all else to look at, but he was really, really, really looking.  
  
Rose made it to the level ground and stopped, treating the new arrival to the party to her most sparkling smile, or so she hoped.

“Good evening,” she said politely.

He regarded her, his hat still in place, which Rose was fairly certain was bad manners. She had enough vivid memories of Pol snatching Finn’s cap off his head and whacking him with it, it strongly suggested that hats in a house were not permissible. That said, perhaps top hats were exempt, like crowns. Then again, perhaps this fella was just straight up ill-mannered, because he simply kept looking at her.

“May I show you to the…” Fuck. The big room had a name, Rose was sure of it, but she couldn’t for the life of her come up with it. “…to the action?”

She managed not cringe visibly, but Rose insides were twisting with embarrassment.

“I was rather expecting to be greeted,” the fella said, tone as clipped as his mustache.

“I _am_ greeting you,” Rose said, forcing her smile to remain and her voice not to waver. “Rose Shelby, at your service.”

He smirked at this in a way that made Rose suspect a faux-pas on her part. It put her hackles up; after all, she had explicit instructions not to be gotten the better of.

“The crown princess,” he purred.

“Of more kingdoms than one,” Rose replied pleasantly. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage.”

She’d heard this line in the pictures more than once and had always thought it sounded regal as anything. For a heartbeat or two, she thought she’d made a hash of it, but then, mercifully, it did the trick.

“Oswald Mosley,” he said. “Simply enchanted to make your acquaintance, Miss Shelby.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Mister Mosley.” Rose turned slightly and took a step towards the big room. “Now, if you’d care to join the party?”

“By all means.” Mister Mosley offered her his arm and Rose slid her arm through, the silky fabric of her elbow length glove smooth against  the noose of his suit jacket. “Lead the way, Miss Shelby.”

It turned out to be impossible to lead the way, Rose was no more capable of guiding their guest through the wide-open doors to the big room than she’d have been able to waltz him round a dancefloor. It was him, who led the way and it was him, who drew the eyes of the room once they’d arrived. One of the hired…footmen? Butlers? Waiters? One of them, at any rate; he came over and Mister Mosley released Rose in favour of abruptly dumping his top hat and scarf in the unfortunate lad’s hands.

“Thank you,” Rose managed, just before the lad slipped away towards the cloakroom.

Mister Mosley looked down at her with distaste and amusement in equal measure.

“You are new to the concept of proper etiquette, I take it, Miss Shelby?”

“Not so new that I don’t recognise rudeness when I see it,” she said.

“There is nothing rude about expecting the staff to do their duty,” Mister Mosley said.

“True,” Rose smiled up at him. “But there’s something distinctly rude about treating a man like a piece of furniture.”

“Ah, the misguided idealism of youth,” Mister Mosley sighed. “How perfectly endearing.”

He raised his hand and very gently brushed a stray bit of hair aside.

“May it be a great many, happy days until the ugly truths of life come lapping at your feet and wash it all away…”  
  
He smiled at her and a shiver ran up Rose’s spine, her heart hammering against the bodice of her battle dress.

“Wet feet don’t bother me,” she said as evenly as she could.

“No,” Mister Mosley said. “I imagine you are quite used to them.”

“Happy memories…” Out of the corner of her eye, Rose caught an advancing blur of white feathers.

“There you are, sweetheart.” Pol slipped an arm around Rose’s waist and moved her out of Mister Mosley’s reach. “Sir Oswald. Mister Shelby sends his apologies, he’s busy with the catering.”

“Thankfully, I have been in the capable hands of his charming daughter,” Mister Mosley replied smoothly.

“So I see,” Polly said with enough steel in her voice to cut a man to ribbons. “Rose, Michael’s arrived. He’d love to see you.”

She squeezed Rose’s hand slightly and Rose directed a final smile towards Mister Mosley.

“If you’ll excuse me. Have a pleasant evening, Mister Mosley.”

“Thank you, Miss Shelby.” He took her hand, even though she’d not offered it, and pressed his dry, cool lips to its back. “I look forward to getting closer acquainted.”

Rose ground her back teeth together, kept smiling and made herself walk away very, very slowly.

She spotted Michael by the ridiculous portrait of her father and the horse – Monahan Boy or Grace’s Secret or Plenty O’Bottle – chatting to a cat-eyed lady. It had to be the new wife, the American one; the one, who set Pol’s teeth on edge, even if she tried not to show it.  
  
Rose hadn’t seen Michael since he’d gone off the America, since he’d been sent into exile. It seemed a strange sort of punishment, to be sent off to the greatest place on earth to eat oranges and buy fancy cars. Where you could end up marrying a film star, or something close enough, even if you had a sour face and a limp.  
  
Rose doubted that Michael had expressed any interest in seeing her, from the look of him there was exactly one person in the room he’d any eyes for; so, when she found her path blocked by the lurching, suited form of her uncle Arthur, she wasn’t disappointed.

He looked down at her, eyes narrow and glittering with the candles in the room; cocked his head to match his crooked smile.

“And what’s a nice girl like you doin’ in a place like this?”

“Pickin’ the pockets of gentlemen.”

Arthur’s smile widened.

“That’s the spirit,” he said.

“Orright, uncle Arthur?”

“Orright, Rosie girl?”

“Survivin’,” she said. “Just.”

“Fuckin’ tell me about it…”

They turned their backs towards the wall, both taking care not to lean, both surveying the scene before them.

“Don’t cross your arms,” Rose said, barely moving her lips.

Her uncle lowered his hands and awkwardly placed them by his sides.

“Bad manners, is it?” he growled.

“Makes you look tense.” Rose was having a hard time keeping her own arms uncrossed, truth be told. “Shoulders back and down. Like you’re relaxed. And try to look bored.”

“He been givin’ you lessons, has he?”

“Nah,” Rose whispered. “Lizzie.”

“Better still.” Arthur straightened his jacket, raised his chin and attempted an air of nonchalance. “What next?”

“We’ll get a drink,” Rose said quietly yet decisive.

Her uncle raised an eyebrow at her.

“What?” she hissed. “It’s to keep me hands busy, I don’t have to drink it.”

They made it across the room to the beverage table without incident, Rose’s hand resting in the crook of her uncle Arthur’s arm.

“Champagne or brandy, sir?”

“Champagne, thank you…Robbie,” Arthur announced.

Rose startled. Her uncle had a hard time remembering names of the working men he dealt with on a daily basis; how the fuck did he know the name of the beverage attendant? Rose hadn’t seen him before; come to think of it…her eyes scanned the room…she’d never seen any of the black-and-whites either.  
  
He extended a champagne flute, covered in little pearls of cold and moisture, balanced on a little silver tray. An engraved nametag blazed on the side of his livery. _Robert._ There were matching flashes of silver strips on every server in the room. It seemed impossible fancy; then again, it was still far from chimpanzees.

“And for you, sir?” Robert asked.

Arthur looked genuinely confused, his eyes wandering from Robert to his empty hand, still aloft to receive the champagne Rose was now holding, and back again.

“The gentlemen will have the brandy,” Rose said sweetly.

Robert turned his attention to the precise science of pouring a polite brandy.

“You can’t have champagne, uncle Arthur,” Rose muttered under her breath.

“Why the fuck not?” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“ ‘cause you’re a man.”

At least Rose assumed this was so. The largest hand she’d seen clasped around the delicate stems of the champagne glasses was barely bigger than her own.

“There you are, sir.”

Arthur snatched the brandy up and sniffed it in distaste.

“Don’t like brandy,” he grumbled as they traversed the room once more, “puts me to sleep.”

“Worse things have happened,” Rose countered.

Arthur positioned them near the door, parked his brandy on a pillary thing with flowers on top and withdrew a cigar from his inside pocket.

“Here we go…” He trapped it between his teeth and lit up. “That’s both hands taken care of.”

Rose, wishing for a cigar of her own, spotted her father over by the table, standing with Pol and Lizzie and the Mosley fella. He leaned in towards Lizzie, Mister Mosley, said something with a genial smile. Lizzie’s own smile was tight as she replied and then, like a full stop to a sentence Rose couldn’t begin to guess at, she dropped something into his glass.

“Who’s he?” Rose asked, taking a stealthy swig of champagne.

“Who’s who?” Arthur asked back.

“Mister Mosley.”

Her uncle’s expression darkened.

“You keep away from that one,” he said.

“Why?” Rose watched with renewed interest as Mister Mosley and her father make for the door. Together. “What’s so special about himself?”

“Rose, I’m not bein’ funny.” Rose looked back to her uncle in surprise. It was rare, practically unheard of, that she was on the receiving end of this type of steel in his tone and eyes. “You stay away. D’you hear me?”

“But-“

“Good,” Arthur cut her off. “Now. Let’s get another round, watch the chicken dance and get through this circus, eh?”

“Orright.” Rose knocked back the rest of her drink, pleased to notice that Arthur had apparently forgotten to disapprove and followed him towards the bar.


	20. Act II

  
Even filtered through a headful of champagne bubbles and a shoulderful of her uncle Arthur’s snoring, Rose had to admit that the dancing was something else. They’d no bones, the dancers; their arms and legs were endless, stretching all over the place like they were made from toffee. Confections, languid, supple, sorrowful confections, they were, offering themselves up on the serving platter of the stage. It was ridiculously beautiful; yet when Rose tore her eyes away and allowed them to tour the audience, she found few of the guests genuinely enraptured. Mild interest was present, boredom was as well. Her eyes found Mister Mosley and for the first time in her life, Rose felt she truly understood what people meant when they talked about aloofness.

He was in the tent, Mister Mosley, his eyes were on the stage, but none of it seemed to touch him. He was as if coated in wax, an impenetrable fortress; and he was looking at the swan as though he was planning to pluck, stuff and roast her for his dinner. 

There was a rustle some seats down and Rose watched her aunt Polly rise and slip away. She craned her head towards the end of the row. Her father, whom she’d glimpsed only from a distance so far this evening, dutifully kept his eyes on the stage; either ignoring Pol’s departure or oblivious to it. Rose couldn’t be sure, but it looked an awful lot like her father and Lizzie were holding hands. They’d disappeared together for much of the early evening, at least Rose thought they had. It had to be a good thing; any time Tommy wanted to spend with Lizzie was a bit less time spent wishing himself dead. 

The music was picking up now, in speed, volume and drama; there was a low an ominous rumbling. Rose wandered what sort of instrument was capable of producing this sort of gravelly murmur, when she felt a soft poke in her back. She turned and was met with Michael’s frown, nodding towards the still snoring Arthur beside her. 

“Someone’s comin’,” he mouthed. 

Rose shrugged her uncle awake and rolled her eyes towards the drive. Through the opening of the tent she could just glimpse headlights advancing on the gates. 

“Right,” Arthur murmured, stood and lumbered off. 

Very stealthily, Rose lifted herself off her chair. She could feel a tug on the back of her dress, likely Michael trying to pull her back into her seat, but he’d been too slow, he didn’t have a proper hold and Rose was away with one easy step. She slipped from the tent and out of her shoes, abandoned them by the edge of the canvas and sprinted after her Arthur’s receding shadow. 

He made it to the little bridge by the gates just as the car pulled up, one arm raised to shield his eyes against the blinding headlights. He was a silhouette, something out of a shadow play, crooked but ready. The car door opened and a shape emerged, stepping out and around and through the beams of light to the front of the car. 

“Linda…” The name broke from her uncle like a sob or a sigh, rising from the depth of his very soul. 

He was still and staring, mesmerized by the vision of his wife to the point of rapture. He was so entranced, he missed the sharp flash of steel as the gun in Linda’s hand passed through the headlights, like a struck match setting Rose’s guts on fire. 

She turned but the tent seemed miles away, too far to make it there and bring back help on time. Shouting was out of the question; it might startle her auntie Linda and was guaranteed to alert the guests to a scene her father wouldn’t want them to witness. 

Rose looked around frantically, looking for anything, some sort of weapon, her mind flashing to the gun secreted in the bottom of her bedside drawer; then snagged on a flurry of white feathers in the dark hedges. For a hysterical moment she thought the swan princess had done a runner, trying to escape from her humiliation in the tent. Then, though, she recalled her aunt Polly’s enormous feathery fan and was racing towards it before she’d made up her mind to do so.

“Pol-“

They were riding or very nearly there at any rate, Polly and Mister Gold. Entwined, disheveled and flushed, they looked at her more in surprise than with any shame. 

“What?” Pol asked.

“Auntie Linda’s after shootin’ uncle Arthur,” Rose blurted. 

Pol was off Mister Gold and past Rose before she knew what was happening. 

“Keep her,” she snapped without turning around and Mister Gold’s hand wrapped around Rose’s wrist, pulling her deeper into she shadows.

“Get off,” Rose hissed, clawing at his vice like grip. “I-“

Mister Gold caught her free hand, his face perfectly calm.

“No,” he said quietly. 

Rose tried to wrench free and found herself dragged towards the back of the tent at a steady pace regardless. They continued their silent struggle until they could hear music whipping itself into a wild crescendo and were close enough to see the huge shadow of the swan, tumbling across the tarp. 

“We’ll have no more dead children,” Mister Gold cut her off and the pain she found in his eyes when she stared at him knocked most of the fight out of her. 

“I’m sorry,” Rose said breathlessly. “About…about Bonnie. I’m sorry, I-“

A gunshot ripped through the music. It jolted Rose’s every bone and sinew, and she started straining to get away once more. Mister Gold wrapped one arm around her waist and the other across her collarbone. He emitted something closely resembling a hiss of pain, when the back of her head collided with his shoulder. 

“_Chavaia_…” he murmured close to her ear,”…wait and listen.”

He wasn’t a big man, Mister Gold, but he was strong. She wasn’t going anyplace unless he let her. Rose growled with frustration. 

“One bullet,” he said quietly. “Just the one. So even if it hit one of yours, there’s plenty left standing to exact retribution.”

“What good’s that?” Rose made one final, half-hearted attempt to free herself and stilled. 

“It soothes the ache, little one,” Mister Gold loosened his grip on her a little, “to see those who’ve taken from you overcome with terror and pain. To see due punishment meted out, justly and without mercy.”

“Have you soothed your ache, Mister Gold?” Rose asked, her ears pricking up as applause rose up from the tent behind them. 

“Some,” he said and Rose thought she could hear the hint of a smile. “Filled a man’s head with hot liquid tar, til it quelled his screams…”

He sounded so dreamy, it made the hair on Rose’s arms stand to attention. 

“I’ve one more man to kill.”

Mister Gold released her as the applause in the tent began to die down. 

“And will you?” Rose asked.

“In the most painful way I can.”

“I’m glad…”

Behind them, in the big house, a woman began to scream. It gave rise to a collective gasp in the tent, followed by the growing hum of murmured speculation. Rose turned to look at Mister Gold and received a small nod and a smile that was smaller still. 

“_Baksheesh_, Mister Gold,” she said hoarsely.

“And to you, _penyáki_.”

Rose spun around and ran.

#

They’d auntie Linda up on the dining room table, like yet another outlandish delicacy, trying to wrestle her onto the table cloth. Tommy had a blade up to Linda’s arm, Pol and Lizzie were holding her legs down with a coat over them, and Rose’s uncle Arthur was at her head, bawlin’ his eyes out. 

“Get the door,” her father barked and Rose, who’d been frozen in the doorway, spun round only to be brushed aside as Mister Mosley strode into the room. 

“Mister Shelby, your guests-“ 

“Get him out, family only,” Tommy roared in their direction and Rose, far more fearful of incurring her father’s wrath in this state than anything Mister Mosley had up his fancy sleeves, took a game step towards their guest and placed her hand on his arm. He shook her off like a fly without even sparing her a glance. 

“Mister Shelby-“ He sounded slightly put out, Mister Mosley, a bit exasperated, the way one might be if one found a child poking at a dying bird.

“Get him out,” Tommy repeated at top volume.

When Arthur wheeled round, gun at the ready, Rose was much quicker to back away than Mister Mosley was. He raised his hands, the expression of minor inconvenience never leaving his face, and retraced his steps, leaving Rose to stumble along behind …or rather in front… of him. 

It didn’t occur to her to sidestep him, it was going to fast, the lot of it, she only thought of it when they were already in the hallway. However, once she did, she at least had the presence of mind to close the door behind her. 

Mister Mosley looked down at her with undisguised displeasure. 

“Family only,” Rose announced shakily. “My apologies, Mister Mosley.”

He let his eyes travel the length of her at his leisure and his lips twitched with mild amusement when he reached her feet. On the other side of the door, Linda howled in rage and agony; but Mister Mosley didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

“Where are your shoes, Miss Shelby?” he chided, gently, in a way that made Rose feel about five years old and about to get eaten alive. “That’s quite the sight to behold.”

She forced herself not to look down, but she could feel small clumps of dirt between her bare toes and bits of damp grass clinging to her ankles. 

“I don’t mind wet feet,” she choked out. “I told you.”

Mister Mosley’s smirk grew into a smile and his smile grew wistful. 

“It’s a pity no one has yet taken the trouble to civilize you,” he said. “With a steady hand to guide you, you might go far, little Miss Shelby, very far indeed.”

He gave a little shake of the head, heaved a sigh and then clapped his hands so suddenly, Rose couldn’t help but startle.

“Oh, well. All’s not lost,” he announced. “Come along, then.” 

Mister Mosley’s hands found her shoulders and Rose found herself being steered towards the entrance hall. 

“Let’s see if we can’t retrieve young Cinderella’s glass slippers,” he purred, as he led her out and turned her towards the tent, “before it’s time for a lesson on the proper use of oratory.”

Her shoes were sitting neatly side by side, on a tall table by the tent entrance; nowhere near where Rose had left them. 

“Would you look at that…”

Mister Mosley released Rose’s shoulders, plucked her shoes off the table and turned to her with a smile on him that left no doubt as to whether or not he’d been the one to deposit them there in the first place. He held the shoes out and Rose took them wordlessly; and then, for a long and strange moment, Mister Mosley simply stood waiting. 

“Put them on,” he finally said encouragingly. 

Rose hesitated. Putting her shoes on meant she’d have to hold onto Mister Mosley to steady herself or, worse, crouch down…kneel, really. She wasn’t prepared to do either. 

“I’m orright,” she said. 

He dipped his chin, an eyebrow raising ever, every so slightly. 

“That won’t do,” he said. “The devil in in the detail, Miss Shelby. Come here.”

She couldn’t move, not to run from him and certainly not to oblige him. After a heartbeat or two, Mister Mosley took a step towards her and took the shoes from her numbing hands. He removed a spotless handkerchief from his pocket, shook it out with an air of infinite exasperation and then, as though he was about to propose, lowered himself until he’d one knee on his fancy snot rag. 

Rose felt his cool, dry hand on her left ankle as he lifted it off the ground and slipped it into her shoe with remarkable expertise. She should have kicked out, she wanted to. Bring her knee up and burst his nose; but instead she let him put her right shoes on as well, obedient and petrified. 

“Now-“ Mister Mosley stood and straightened out his jacket “-that’s much better. As for your wholly unnecessary fuss…” he tutted, “…if you promise to listen and learn like a good girl, we’ll say no more about it.”

He didn’t bother waiting for a reply, he simply took her arm, led her into the tent and through the milling and murmuring guests. Even though her entire being was burning with shame, Rose allowed herself to be deposited in an empty front row seat. Mister Mosley gave her a bloodcurdling wink and stepped onto the stage. 

“Ladies and gentlemen…” He wasn’t shouting, he didn’t need to. He slid into the perfect pitch, his face set in an unassuming, polite expression. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to extend our gratitude to the musicians and the dance company for your wonderful performance.”

It struck Rose that this was wrong, very, very wrong indeed; that it should have been her father or, at the very least, Lizzie, up on the stage amongst the polite clapping of hands. 

“This has been a wonderful evening. And not only for the music and the dancing; it has also been about us, the people gathered here today.” 

He was good. He was reeling them in so smoothly, they didn’t even feel the hooks in their cheeks. 

“English people, in the heart of England…”

It nearly ripped her off her chair, that line, no matter how softly it was spoken. Rose stared up at Mister Mosley. Bathed in the stage lights, he seemed to be growing, set on filling the tent. She’d never seem a more polished human being, rarely heard someone speak with such ease and confidence and an absolute air of authority. 

“In the life of great nations, there are moments of destiny-” he had them in his pocket now, Mister Mosley, he had them hanging onto his every word “-which have swept aside small men of convention and discovered men of the moment – and our host is such a man.”

Mister Mosley extended a hand towards the back of the tent and Rose craned her head to see her father, flanked by Pol and Lizzie, standing just outside of it. He was working hard to keep his face still, only the smallest crease between his brows betraying any kind of concern. Still, it was enough to set Rose’s blood roaring in her ears, to the point of nearly drowning out Mister Mosley. He talked off the mighty mood of the nation, of infinite possibility, of good news and the heart of England. He talked about setting a new course, a political cause, shoulder to shoulder with Rose’s father.

There was applause, more enthusiastic than merely polite now, but Mister Mosley wasn’t pleased. On the contrary, he was getting fired up now. He wasn’t quite rambling, he was still in control, only he was allowing himself a little…passion, perhaps that’s what you’d call it. 

He was onto the stock market now, the losses and the disaster, the faltering British steel mills falling prey to foreign exports…the sweated labour of the orient…Rose’s head was starting to swim a little as the crowd began to hum in agreement, egging Mister Mosley on. 

“…policies that could not be pursued by British statesmen, unless they were mad or the servants of Jewish finance,” he declared hotly. “They are the ones, who took your money.”

He had the poshest accent Rose had heard in her life, every syllable as crisp as his shirt, every sentence as neat as his mustache; and yet all Rose could think of was James.

The great war, the _Jew _war, the heroes of the war joining hands with the angry youths of Manchester and Birmingham and fuck knew where else… he was whipping them into a frenzy now. They were loving this, the posh fuckers, they were loving it the same way James loved it when the old blokes down at the Bull Ring clapped him on the shoulder and imparted some questionable wisdom. 

“Britain first,” Mister Mosley declared and the tent fairly erupted with applause. 

He went on, urging them to spread the word, to tell all their friends because the newspapers…oh, no…they’d never report fairly on the noble crusade to give back to the British what was rightfully theirs…Rose felt the tent start to spin around her, dropped her eyes and stared down at her filthy feet inside her shining shoes. 

They were cheering now, clapping, sending Mister Mosley off to shouts of “Good man” and “Well said” and “Here, here”; Rose could feel his hand brush her shoulder in passing and jerked back reflexively. 

He was a fuckin’ liar, he had to be. Her father wouldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with a man like this on an overcrowded train, no way he would. Rose willed herself to her feet and made her way through the crowd unsteadily. He was standing with them now, Mister Mosley, standing with her family, talkin’, perfectly relaxed and her father was making no move to punch his lights out. He was just standing, smoking, his face a mask of nothing.

As Rose stepped out of the tent, surprised at how much cooler it was in the open air, Mister Mosley took up Lizzie’s hand and kissed it, just like he’d done to Rose. 

“Now, forgive me,” he said smoothly. “I’m going to borrow your husband for a little while.”

She looked as though she was ready to spit at him, Lizzie, ready to spit in his face but too unsure of the consequences to truly work up the nerve. Rose stopped and held her breath. He’d let him have it, any second now, her father. He’d rip Mister Mosley in half, cut his face open and crumble his ribs with his good dress shoes.  
Instead, he stepped through the icy void between Lizzie and Mister Mosley.

“This way.”

Mister Mosley held Lizzie’s hard stare for a moment longer, then followed Tommy towards the big house. 

Rose took three shaky steps to Lizzie’s side. 

“What the fuck’s going on?” she whispered. 

Lizzie was shaking her head, hugging herself in the very way she’d forbidden Rose to do.

“Wouldn’t dance with me at our own wedding,” she said bitterly. “But when it comes to dancin’ with the devil, he’s the first on the fucking floor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chavaia - stop  
Baksheesh - good luck  
Penyáki - niece


	21. Act III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genuinely a bit excited for this one...not gonna lie. Hope you enjoy!!

The guests were beginning to disperse now; some making their departures in chauffeur driven cars, others wandering off towards the guest rooms. Lizzie was smiling, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, every inch the hostess. Rose drifted through the entrance hall and into the big room, deserted apart from a couple of black-and-whites clearing away the remains of the refreshments. None of them paid any attention when Rose collected a half-empty bottle of champagne.  
  
She slipped away into the long hallway, swigging flat, sticky drink mechanically. It was no wonder they were constantly into the drink, her father and uncles and aunts, no wonder that it was known as liquid courage. It was making her feel a bit queasy, true, but it was also smoothing out the jagged edges of her insides as if by magic.

The door to the library creaked open and Rose, without thinking about it, slid towards the closest window and disappeared into the long, heavy curtain brushing the floor.  
  
“I bid you goodnight, Mister Shelby…”  
  
Rose’s breathing grew shallow at the sound of his voice alone.  
  
“It has been a very interesting evening indeed,” Mister Mosley was lingering by the library door, “yet I feel it hasn’t been entirely unproductive.”  
  
He started down the corridor, his steps measured and unhurried, and Rose closed her eyes and willed herself to become as still as the dead.  
  
He slowed, Mister Mosley, as he neared Rose inside her curtain; slowed and slowed… and stopped. Rose’s racing heart was pumping the champagne through her at such a rapid pace, she was seeing stars. He couldn’t know; not unless he could literally smell fear.  
  
“Sweet dreams, little Miss Shelby…”  
  
She bit her lip to keep a scream at bay, drawing blood. His voice was so close, his lips had to be near brushing the other side of the curtain. Rose gripped the bottle tighter, ready to smash it into his face should he decide to uncover her; but he didn’t.  
  
She counted to a hundred once his footfalls had faded away, before disentangling herself and continuing down the hall on tiptoe; close to running and shooting glances over her shoulder every breath or two.  
  
Frances appeared out of nowhere, rounding a corner and nearly knocking Rose off her feet. Instinctively, she moved her hands behind her back in a feeble attempt to hide the drink, but as it turned out France couldn’t have given two fucks.  
  
“Rosie,” she said breathlessly, her usually pained expression dialed up all the way to full-blown distress.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Rose asked.  
  
“Have you seen your father?”  
  
“In the library-“  
  
Frances was past her and headed for the library at such speed it very nearly counted as a run.  
  
“Frances?” Rose gave chase, her legs suddenly soft with drink. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Frances knocked and entered, not waiting to hear a reply from within; it was completely unheard of and sent the roots of Rose’s hair tingling.  
  
“What is it, Frances?” her father asked tiredly.  
  
“I-“ Frances faltered for a moment, cleared her throat and started again. “I can’t find Charles, Mister Shelby.”  
  
The ensuing silence was broken by the shattering of Rose’s champagne bottle as it slipped from her grip. Drawing both Frances’ and her father’s attention, at least for a moment.  
  
“What?” Tommy asked.  
  
“He’s not in his room,” Frances said hoarsely. “He…I don’t know how long he’s been gone. There was a pillow under the blanket…” she was rambling now, “… I checked on him earlier, right after the…the commotion. On both of them…Ruby took some settling but… I thought he was asleep, I didn’t want to wake him. I only went in to close the window for the night just now and…and…”  
  
Tommy’s hand flew up and covered his mouth, his eyes wide, his breathing spiraling out of control.  
  
“I’m sorry…” poor Frances was nearly in tears now. “Mister Shelby, I-“  
  
“Shut up,” he snapped. “I can’t think-“  
  
“He can’t have gone far…” Frances’ voice was cracking.  
  
“Shut-“  
  
“Don’t,” Rose interrupted before her father could get going properly.  
  
He stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time.  
  
“I know where he is,” Rose said.  
  
He just kept staring, nostrils flaring and jaw tight with the sheer effort of keeping himself together. Frances, on the other hand, looked ready to throw herself at Rose’s feet and kiss them.  
  
“D’you really, Rosie?” she whispered.  
  
“I think so,” Rose said carefully, acutely aware of her father’s eyes drilling into her.  
  
“Where?” he rasped.  
  
Rose swallowed hard, sending a rare prayer to the power’s that be to make her right.  
  
“Come,” she said.  
  
Tommy and Frances followed in grim silence as Rose led them into the back part of the big house and through to the laundry. Her champagne-fizzy mind was sloshing all over the place, bringing whispers of doubt and waves and waves of horrible possibilities. In the very back of the ironing room was an enormous linen cupboard. Rose’s heart soared when she saw the big brass key wasn’t in the keyhole.  
  
“In there, but-“  
  
Her father pushed past her and tried to wrench the door open before she could stop him.  
  
“Don’t-“ she started.  
  
“Charlie?” Tommy called. “Charles. If you’re in there, come out. Now.”  
  
“Stop…”  
  
Rose staggered forward and tried to put herself between her father and the linen cupboard. He looked ready to kick the door in, but settled for whacking it with the palm of his hand.  
  
“Charles!” He wasn’t angry, he was desperate; but Rose wasn’t certain Charlie would be able to tell the difference.  
  
“Stop fuckin’ shouting,” Rose pleaded. “Just…” she got her shoulder under her father’s arm and pushed him back as hard as she dared, “…let me.”  
  
He was glaring pure daggers, but he took a step back.  
  
Rose knocked on the door of the linen cupboard – long, long, short, long – and, after a terrifying second, there was a matching knock from the other side.  
  
“It’s me,” Rose said quietly. “Mission accomplished.”  
  
There was a rustle and the sound of the key being turned from the inside. It opened and Charlie stepped out cautiously, keeping a weary eye on Tommy. Frances let out something between a sigh and sob behind them.  
  
Rose, careful to keep herself between her brother and her father, looked up and tried to read Tommy’s expression. The steely resolve to show no fear was dissolving, giving way to a curious mix of relief, irritation and incomprehension.  
  
“What were you doin’ in there then, Charles?” he asked.  
  
“I…uhm…” Rose could feel Charlie’s hand sneaking up and taking hold of the back of her dress, using her like a shield. “It woke me up.”  
  
“What did?” Tommy asked quietly.  
  
“The shootin’,” Charlie said. “The screamin’. I thought…”  
  
“You thought what?” Tommy asked when it became clear that Charlie wouldn’t go on.  
  
“I thought it was an emergency,” Charlie whispered. “So…so I did the plan. I was gonna bring Ruby, but-”  
  
“You did really well, Charlie,” Rose said with a calm completely at odds with the dread rising inside her.  
  
“What’s he on about?” Tommy rounded on her.  
  
“I…” Rose took a breath and resigned herself to whatever would be coming next. “The emergency plan, you know, in case something goes sideways.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’ve to be prepared,” Rose said as evenly as she could. “Don’t want to be caught on the backfoot, and all that.”  
  
“And putting a pillow in your bed, Charles? Part of the plan, is it?”  
  
“Yea,” Charlie said hesitantly. “It’s called a decoy, isn’t it, Rosie? Did it work?”  
  
“Brilliantly,” Rose croaked.  
  
“Right…” her father ran a hand over his hair. “Right. So. Why didn’t you come out?”  
  
“I did…” Charlie tightened his hold on Rose’s dress.  
  
“It’s part of the plan,” she came to his aid. “He’s not to open the door or even make a sound unless it’s me. And even then, he’s only allowed after I’ve done the knock.”  
  
“What if you’re not home?” her father challenged.  
  
“Then he waits.” Rose bit her lip and waited.  
  
“How long?” Tommy asked.  
  
“Til I come home."

"What if you don't?"

"Til the maids come down in the mornin’,” Rose said. “And if they don’t, til the water runs out.”  
  
“You’ve water in there?” He was trying to wrap his head around this, she could tell.  
  
“And biscuits,” Charlie added.  
  
“Orright…” Tommy was rubbing the back of his neck. “So, if there was to be an _emergency_ first thing in the day, you’re stuck in there for twenty-four hours.”  
  
“That can’t happen,” Charlie announced.  
  
“Can it not?” He sounded mostly tired now, Tommy.  
  
Charlie shook his head.  
  
“How’s that, me boy?”  
  
“ ‘cause it’s not the morning plan,” Charlie said earnestly.  
  
“I see,” their father was looking back and forth between them with growing disbelief. “There’s two plans, is there?”  
  
“Six,” Charlie corrected.  
  
Tommy paused and Charlie sucked his lips between his teeth and fell silent.  
  
“You’ve_ six_ separate emergency plans?”  
  
“There’s lots of different kinds of emergencies” Rose offered, doing her best not to squirm when he zeroed in on her. She was getting rather dizzy, she’d to be much drunker than she’d thought.  
  
“Better safe than sorry,” Charlie piped up.  
  
“That’s right,” Rose said, giving her brother a wobbly smile and bringing a clammy hand up to her heated cheek.  
  
“And no comin’ out til you’re allowed.” He sounded so proud that he remembered, her brother. “No matter who comes calling.”  
  
“Even if it’s me…” Tommy said it to himself rather than anyone else.  
  
“You’ve to keep it simple,” Rose heard herself say. “No exceptions. Not even for you… ‘cause…”  
  
“ ‘cause what, Rosie?” her father prompted from far away.  
  
“Because-” Rose looked up at him, her vision a bit blurry, “-you might be the emergency.”  
  
He slammed into focus. She might have slapped him. Or shot him. The injury passed through his eyes like a bullet. He tried to blink it away, but the hurt kept flooding back. It left him looking like a little boy who was being sent to bed without dinner for the third night running; or an old man stuck on a bench because he couldn’t remember where he lived anymore. It was an infinite sort of sadness and it made Rose want to cry.  
  
She’d only told the truth, yet the remorse was instant and brutal; but even through the muddled mess filling her head to the point of causing pain, she knew the words needed to make it better hadn’t been invented yet.  
  
“It’s late…” He was dragging the words up from the very bottom of his being. “High time for bed, eh?”  
  
“High time,” Rose echoed.  
  
Slowly, as if his every bone was on the verge of crumbling, Tommy bent down and his arms creaked open like a rusty set of gates. Charlie, tentatively, stepped forward and allowed himself to be hugged.  
  
“Good night, Charlie boy,” Tommy said hoarsely. “And well done.”  
  
Charlie fairly crumpled with relief and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, melting into him for a moment.  
  
“Come on.” Tommy patted him on the back and Charlie reluctantly let go. “Go on up with Frances. Good boy.”  
  
Rose watched her father get to his feet, her own rooted to the laundry floor. The dark circles beneath Tommy’s eyes were like moats round a castle.  
  
“You look beautiful.” He sounded oddly formal.  
  
“I-“  
  
“It’s been a long night,” he interrupted, his eyes resting somewhere just behind her shoulder. “You must be tired.”  
  
He was off and up the stairs long before Rose could think of anything to say or even just remember how to work her legs.

#

When she finally did, she went slowly, keeping her eyes on the ground, looking for pieces of broken heart to collect along the way. But all she found was Charlie and Ruby, sitting on the bed in her room, waiting.  
  
“Can we-“ Ruby started.  
  
“Yea,” Rose said. “Yea, ‘course you can. Lie down, go on.”  
  
She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed as her siblings arranged themselves head to toe on the wall side. Carefully, she opened the drawer of the bedside table, just a bit, just enough to slide in her hand and make sure the gun was still where she’d left it.  
  
“We’re ready,” Ruby announced.  
  
Rose settled with her back against the head of the bed and squeezed her legs into the little space remaining.  
  
“When grown-ups were all busy and the children ruled the streets,” she began, “there wasn’t a house on Watery Lane that didn’t have a magic drawer…”  
  
She watched Ruby and Charlie’s eyes grow heavy and slitted, as she made the drawers walk down stairs and out of houses, to meet for a dance in the moonlit shipyard. It got the drawers all tipsy, the spinning round and the sparkling of the stars, so when they went home, they were liable to fall asleep in random places. Blocking doors, stairways, all sorts of things.  
  
“Where’s your magic drawer now?” Ruby muttered, already half-asleep.  
  
“Over there,” Rose said wearily, nodding towards the white drawer by the far wall of the room. “Pol said I could have it, ‘cause it made more trouble than it was worth.”  
  
“ ‘s not trouble,” Ruby forced her eyes as wide as they would go. “ ‘s magic…”  
  
“Yea,” Rose whispered. “Magic. Now, go to sleep.”  
  
She’d stay up. They’d be asleep in a minute and then she’d push the drawer in front of the door and go to sleep with the gun under her pillow…

#

Rose woke with a start and swung her legs out of bed before she was fully conscious. It was orright. She’d nodded off, but it was orright, she couldn’t have been out for long.  
She stumbled over to the chest of drawers, a champagne headache blooming around the edges of her skull. It wasn’t heavy, she could push it easily-  
  
“Will it keep out the dragons, d’you think?”  
  
She didn’t startle. It wasn’t surprising anymore, she’d come to expect him. He was on the chair in the corner, his head resting against the wall. He’d the good suit on and everything, just like the real thing, only he was missing the bowtie.  
  
“No,” she said softly. “But it’ll make sweet memories. Sweet memories of a terrible time…” she nodded towards the bed, “…for them.”  
  
Rose gave the drawers a final push, getting them as flush against the door as they would go. There was maybe a finger between the door handle and the drawer’s surface, like it’d been custom made to barricade this very door.  
  
“Is it so terrible?”  
  
“Not for them…” She made her way back to bed and sat down very, very gently, so as not to disturb her sleeping siblings. “They’ve magic still.”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea.” Rose gave up on trying to get any blanket and stretched out as best as she could. “It only gets terrible once the magic runs out.”  
  
She closed her eyes. Sleep would come. It nearly had her when there was a whisper from the corner.  
  
“D’you still have magic, Rosie?”  
  
“No…” it drifted from her without any doing of her own. “Travels from mother to daughter…if it travels at all…I’ve nothin’…”  
  
Rose could hear a faint sort of snuffling, scratchy and labored, going on and on until sleep claimed her.

#

She woke again, this time to the weight of the sleeping Charlie on her legs and the delighted squeals of her little sister.  
  
“Rosie, look!”  
  
“Hmm?” Rose kept her eyes closed and felt a slow smile spread over her face.  
  
“It’s moved, Rosie, it really has!”  
  
“Is that right?”  
  
It’d be her own lovely memory of a terribly time, the sound of Ruby’s incredulous joy at the second coming of the great drawer bujo.  
  
“Yea,” Ruby was pulling on her, trying to get her to sit up. “All the way across – it’s right next to the door.”  
  
Rose sat up as if stung. Charlie copped her foot in the shoulder, grunted and rolled over.  
  
“See?”  
  
Rose blinked. The drawer sat beside the door. Fucking beside it.

“Did you do that?” Rose asked.  
  
It was too neat. Ruby was too little. Ruby was too fuckin’ excited…  
  
“No-“ Ruby stared up at her, genuinely offended, “-it’s the magic! It’s real, Rosie. It really happened!”  
  
“Oh…” Rose felt all air leave her body, winded by a punch that knocked over any bits of stray certainty inside her “…oh, fuck…”  
  
“What?” Ruby asked, from somewhere in the wildly spinning room.  
  
“I…” Rose tried to swallow down the bile rising from her liquid guts. “I think…fucking hell, Rubes, I think you’re right.”


	22. Daylight Hours

He wasn’t in the office. He wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t in the drawing room or the big room or the dining room. There were too many fuckin’ rooms. He wasn’t in the library. He wasn’t in the bath…Lizzie was though.

“What’s wrong?”

Lizzie gripped the sides of the tub and was halfway out of the water in no time at all.

“Where’s me da?” Rose panted.

“You orright?”

“Yea…” Rose held onto the doorframe and forced herself to breath slowly. “Where-“

“He’d to go out.” Lizzie was looking at Rose intently. “For a meetin’-“

Rose didn’t wait to hear the end of it. She could hear Lizzie calling after her and the splash of bathwater hitting the floor.

She passed through the big room, again, and even though she was running, her eyes snagged on a ladies’ purse abandoned on the lounge. Rose snatched it up nearly without breaking stride and raced on towards the mudroom at the far end of the big house.

Her boots were there and she stepped into them, not bothering with the laces. The coatrack was laden and there wasn’t any time. The one closest to her was too big, a man’s, but she had to be quick now.

The morning air hit her, like a shower of sewing pins aimed right at her face. It brought her to, enough to stuff the purse into the coat’s deep pocket as she sprinted for the stable. It wasn’t early, not by any stretch of the imagination, but that was good; because the grooms had been and gone going about their morning business.

The big black one was huffing in her box, she was getting on, but she was closest to the door and the one most used to being out these days.

Rose had the bridle off the wall and in between the beast’s teeth in less than a minute, hands flying about on their own accord, doing the job for her without her having to think about it. Lizzie’d be out of the bath now.

Gripping hold of the horse’s mane with one hand and a hook on the wall with the other, Rose hoisted herself up and over, nearly loosing a boot in the process. There was a sound of fabric ripping, last night’s dress protesting to such unladylike treatment.

She clicked her tongue and the big black maneuvered out of the box and through the door with practiced ease.

Rose bent forward, steadying herself on the base of the big black’s neck.

“_Jal_,” she whispered.

The horse huffed, Rose clamped her knees to its flanks and they were off.

She was vaguely aware of some shouting behind her, but whoever it was, they didn’t stand a chance. Rose galloped through the gates, leaned into the reigns and turned the beast a hard left onto the field. The dirt was spraying around them, the ground still damp from the night.

It was orright. The wind was ripping the pins out of her hair. It was fine. They were flying. It was good. They’d be at the station in Rugby in less than an hour.

#

There was lipstick in the purse. And powder. A cigarette holder and a lighter and a half-full cigarette case. A fuckin’ hand mirror, one of the numbers that looked like a macaroon. There was a pair of earrings. Rose leaned her back against the wall of the station building, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The horse huffed, testing how tightly she’d tied it to the lamppost with a jerk of the head.  
  
Stifling a groan of frustration, Rose turned the purse upside down, spilling its contents onto the dirty pavement. The powder came undone, dusting her boots and the hem of her evening dress. The hand mirror opened as well, spilling tiny shards of glass and, miraculously, a number of neatly folded banknotes.

Rose went down on her haunches and fished the cash from the sea of glass and powder, lightheaded with relief. It didn’t look like much, but she didn’t need much.  
  
“London, please.” Rose pushed her hair behind her ears and lifted her chin. Nothing out of the ordinary here.  
  
“King’s Cross,” she added, a little pleased underneath the buzzing inside her that she’d remembered.  
  
“Single or return?”  
  
“Single.”  
  
The fella behind the counter didn’t so much as look her up and down. He named a price, took her notes, handed her back the ticket and a pathetic bit of change.  
  
“Just outside?” Rose asked, nodding towards the platform on the other side of the glass doors.  
  
“Yea,” the fella said. “At half-noon.”  
  
Rose’s head snapped up, she stared at him.  
  
“What time’s it now?” she asked.  
  
“Ten-fifteen.”  
  
Ah. Ah, fucking hell.  
  
“Thank you,” Rose said as politely as she could manage.  
  
Right. She walked outside and looked up and down the street. The big black was licking at the puddle of powder. Rose took out the the lighter and cigarette case, lit up and watched the smoke rise.  
  
They weren’t likely to look for her here, they’d assume she’d ridden for Birmingham; but it still wouldn’t do to spend the better part of two hours as a sitting duck next to this beacon of a horse. Something had to be done about the horse, really.  
  
There was a cluster of lads at the corner, leaning and watching, probably waiting for suitcases to carry for a coin. Rose stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled.  
  
They looked up, startled, then one of them broke from the pack and ambled over.  
  
“Orright, Miss?”  
  
He was younger than her, Rose guessed, not by very much, but enough to accept her higher standing in the pecking order of youth.  
  
“D’you want to earn yourself a fiver?” Rose asked.  
  
He scoffed, but she could see a glint of possibility in his eyes.  
  
“How?”  
  
“D’you know how to ride a horse?”  
  
“ ‘course.”  
  
Rose nodded towards the big black.  
  
“I need someone to take his one to the bi-“ she took a drag on her cigarette to mask the fumble “- to Arrow House.”  
  
“Where’s that?”  
  
“Up the road.” Rose pointed her chin in the vague direction of the big house. “Ask anyone along the way, you’ll find it.”  
  
“Orright,” he said, holding out his hand.  
  
“Fuck off,” Rose laughed. “They’ll pay you on delivery.”  
  
“My arse, they will,” he shot back. “They’ll call the coppers and have me done for stealing the bloody thing.”  
  
“Well, if I pay you now, you _will_ be stealing the bloody thing. And the cash.”  
  
He was glaring at her.  
  
“Look,” Rose said with a good deal of exasperation. “Either let’s get on with it or bugger off and send me over one of your mates. Preferably one with a bit of sense for  
business.”  
  
The lad held up his hands.  
  
“Orright, orright, keep your hair on, Miss,” he said. “What’ll I tell them?”  
  
“You ask to speak to Frances and you tell her that Rosie said to give you a fiver for your trouble,” Rose said.  
  
He was caught halfway between calling bollocks on this and exploding with delight at the sheer secret missionness of it all.  
  
“Now,” Rose went on. “The horse’s had a big run this morning, so take her for a walk, find her some grass and let her rest for a bit. D’you tell time?”  
  
“Yea,” he said, mortally offended.  
  
“Don’t leave before twelve,” Rose said. “And take your time, d’you understand?”  
  
“Yea…”  
  
“Five pound,” Rose repeated. “You do as I said and it’s a guarantee. Arrow House. Ask for Frances. Rosie said.”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
Rose smiled and offered him the open cigarette case.  
  
“Good man,” she said when he took a couple. “Now, take the beast and fuck off.”

#

People didn’t kill themselves in broad daylight, Rose didn’t think they did. It was a secret and shameful and lonely thing to do; much better suited to the dusk and maybe dawn, in a pinch, and all the hours in between.  
  
He’d been alive this morning. She’d be on her way come lunchtime and then…fuck…she’d get to him. She’d get to him before the sun went down. End of fucking story.  
  
Rose spend an hour and a half on a bench in the far corner of the waiting room, barricaded behind a discarded newspaper; every minute stretching into several years.  
  
By the time the train rolled into the station, she was ready to scream. The sitting, it was doing her head in, being stuck and waiting at the mercy of the clock.  
  
The motion of the train, once it got going, soothed her a little. It was still too slow, she’d still be hours before she could even start to look for him; but at the very least she was moving now.  
  
She leaned her head against the window and willed the train onward.

#

“Parliament?” The lady at the apple cart outside the station rolled her eyes. “That’s in Westminster. Your miles away, love.”  
  
“So…” Rose closed her eyes for a moment and forced down the dawning realization that she’d fuck all in terms of an actual plan.  
  
“So?” The lady echoed.  
  
“How do I get there?”  
  
“Cab, if you’ve got the money.”  
  
Rose weighed the change in her coat pocket and shook her head.  
  
“Underground’s not as dear,” the lady said, finally taking pity. “Ask for Victoria Station. Easy walk from there.”  
  
“The Underground?”  
  
“Victoria Station,” the lady repeated, took an apple of her tray and held it out to Rose.  
  
“Thank you,” Rose said. “Thanks very much.”

#

It would have been the most exciting thing, under normal circumstances, the underground. But, as she made her way into the bowels of the city, Rose’s head was filled with the scraping of giant moles, clawing their way through the earth with dogged determination.  
  
When the train rushed into the station, hissing like a thousand dragons, Rose jumped backwards and knocked into the couple behind her.  
  
“Sorry…”  
  
They didn’t even spare her a glance, they simply stepped around her and got on. Rose wrapped her hand around her apple as though it was a lethal weapon, took a deep breath  
and let the underground dragon swallow her up.

#

  
It was fucking closed. Of course it was. It was a fucking Sunday afternoon, just gone four if the enormous clock was to be believed; of course it was fucking closed.  
  
Rose could feel her bare feet starting to prickle inside her boots. She flexed her toes and ground her teeth. Jesus fuck, she was so stupid.  
  
It couldn’t be far, the London apartment, it wouldn’t make sense if it was. And he’d an office there, too, surely; he’d an office in any building he ever set foot in. Only it wasn’t  
as if Rose could walk up to the next face she saw and ask them. _Excuse me, ma’am, I’m lookin’ for me da’s office…_that’d be a fuckin’ laugh.  
  
“Right…” Rose muttered through gritted teeth. “Fuckin’ right…”  
  
She spotted a phonebooth across the street and beelined for it. Not everyone’s office was closed on a Sunday. She fed the phone her last coin and dialed.

#

  
“Finn?“  
  
“Ro? Fuckin’…” Finn sounded like she’d been running. “You orright?”  
  
“Yea…” Rose licked her lips. “But…uhm…”  
  
“Where the bloody hell are you?” Finn asked. “Lizzie’s beside herself, Pol’s fucking fumin’. She’ll-“  
  
“D’you know the address for the London apartment?” Rose interrupted.  
  
“Rosie. Where are you?”  
  
“Outside the fuckin’ locked parliament building,” Rose snapped. “Listen. Fuck. D’you know the address or not?”  
  
“What are you-“  
  
“Finn,” Rose shouted, her voice cracking ever so slightly.  
  
“I’m callin’ Ada to come pick you up,“ Finn announced.  
  
“No, fuck off…please?” Rose whacked her hand against the back of the booth. “I need to…just…come on.”  
  
“Don’t you-“  
  
“Come on,” Rose repeated thickly.  
  
“Fuck…” She could practically hear Finn tearing his hair out. “Right, just…hang on.”  
  
There was some rustling and a slamming of drawers.  
  
“Now, d’you have a pen?”  
  
“Yea…”  
  
Rose dug the purse from her pocket and the lipstick from the purse. She folded her coat open and wrote the address on the skirt of her evening dress.  
  
“D’you want Ada’s address, as well?” Finn asked. “Just in case?”  
  
“I know Ada’s address,” Rose said shakily. “I’m not here to see Ada…”  
  
“Yea, I know, but-“ Finn’s tone had softened a good deal now “- but he mightn’t be there, Ro. They’ve been tryin’ to reach him all day, ‘cause you’d run off, and no one’s had  
any luck.”  
  
Rose’s stomach dropped. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the door.  
  
“Finn?”  
  
“Yea, Ro?”  
  
“Will you call Lizzie and tell her I’m orright?”  
  
“ ‘course,” Finn said. “Pol as well. And Ada. And fuckin’ Arthur and uncle Charlie and-“  
  
“Finn?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Can you tell them I’m staying at yours the night?”  
  
“Can I fuck, you-“  
  
“Please?”  
  
There was nothing for so long, Rose thought the connection had dropped out.  
  
“You’ll be the fuckin’ death of me,” Finn finally grumbled.  
  
Rose nearly fainted with relief.  
  
“Thank you-“ she heaved a sigh “-really, orright. Thank you.”  
  
“Good luck, Rosie.”

The London apartment wasn’t as close as Rose had hoped. Not even a bit. By the time she’d asked her way to the right street, the sun was barely touching the roofs anymore.  
Rose’s feet were starting to kill her. They were great boots, but they weren’t meant to be worn without socks and she could feel the skin rubbing of the sides of her feet and the tops of her toes; still, the closer Rose got to the right house number, the faster she moved.  
  
It was a strange street, it was like one long house stretched out from one corner to the next, it confused the eye and Rose had to keep stopping to look for the numbers on the doors...and when she finally got to the right one, her heart sank immediately. There wasn't anyone in. She could tell even before she'd rung the doorbell, she didn't know why exactly, but she could tell.

She rang the bell anyway, leaned on it. Again and again and again, until her fingertip was white and numb. 

He wasn't there. 

The sun was disappearing now, behind the roofs, plunging the opposite side of the road into the grey beginnings of darkness. Rose sat down on the curb. So stupid. She was so stupid - it hadn't even occurred to her until now that her father might have his meeting _anywhere. _It didn't have to be in London, it didn't even have to be back in Birmingham; he could have been in Wales or Nottinghamshire or fuckin' Monte Carlo for all she knew. 

There wasn't a chance she'd find him before dark. The shadow of the giant house opposite was licking at the tips of her boots.   
  
Rose laid her head on her arms and cried. It did no good whatsoever.  
  
She felt in her pockets and went through the purse, searching for another bit of change, enough for a call just; but there was only the apple, now as bruised as Rose felt herself; the cigarettes, lighter and lipstick.  
  
Her breath still hitching in her throat, Rose ate the apple, smoked a cigarette and then pushed herself to her feet. She’d walk to Ada’s. It couldn’t be that far.

#

  
Rose lost track of time. She walked. Took her shoes off, after a while, and her feet wept with relief. It started to rain.  
  
People to ask for directions were far and few between now, but Rose didn’t mind. She’d be lost for a bit and then someone would point her the way she’d come from with instructions to turn go left where she’d gone right a while back.  
  
She bathed her feet in puddles and pools of streetlights, the water stinging as much as it soothed.  
  
It didn’t feel so bad, to be all alone in the world. So long as there was pain in her feet and in her head and in her hollow stomach, Rose couldn’t feel much else. It’d be terrible tomorrow; but it wasn’t so bad now…there was always the rain for company.

#

  
She almost didn’t realise when she turned into Ada’s street. She probably wouldn’t have known at all, if it hadn’t been for the bakery at the corner.  
Knowing that she’d only a couple of hundred yards to go, turned every bone inside Rose to lead. Every bit of her suddenly refused.  
  
“Come on…” Rose muttered to herself. “Go on…just a little bit more, eh?”  
  
There was a streetlight right outside Ada’s house, it’d driven Rose half mad trying to sleep at night. It made a neat circle of light, spanning from Ada’s front step to the wheel of a car parked outside.  
  
Rose locked her eyes on the light and commanded herself to move towards it.  
  
Three steps into the operation, she froze.  
  
He came out of the house, all pulled down cap and square set shoulders, passed through the halo of the streetlamp and into the darkness by the car. There was rain in Rose’s  
eyes and a heavy nothing inside her head, but she knew without a doubt that it was him.  
  
Her feet started moving. She dropped her shoes.  
  
The rain was hitting her face harder as she was picking up speed, blinding her. Rose pumped her arms and ran for all she was worth. She abandoned the footpath and sprinted onto the road. Something sharp bit into her foot. She kept running, trying to push the rain aside with her hands, swimming through it-  
  
Rose slammed into the still unmoving car the second the headlights came on. She winded herself but didn’t go down. Hugging the bonnet like a drowning girl hanging onto a piece of driftwood, she looked up and there, behind the waterfall of rain cascading down the windshield, staring at her as if he’d just seen a ghost, was Tommy.


	23. Nighttime

The engine was rumbling against Rose’s heaving chest; or maybe it was her heartbeat shaking the car, she couldn’t be sure. Her father was stuck behind the wheel, open-mouthed and white-knuckled. Rose pointed her toes, scrabbling against the wet graininess of the road, getting ready to push back in case he decided to start driving. But then the bonnet went still beneath her and Rose, for a blissful moment of all-encompassing relief, rested her cheek against the cool, rain-slick metal.  
  
“What the fuck-“  
  
He was out in the rain with her now, Tommy, holding onto the door and the roof of the car, trembling to the point of becoming blurred round the edges. Rose opened her mouth, but there wasn’t a chance of talking and breathing at the same time.  
  
“Rosie?”  
  
It took a monumental effort to lift her head and chest from the bonnet; her aching elbows screamed in protest. Rose turned her head up, up and up until her father was properly vertical behind the curtain wet hair hanging into her eyes. He looked fuckin’ horrified.  
  
“-“ Rose’s throat closed up, choking the words away.  
  
Tommy took a step forward and, for a moment, the rain fizzing in the glow of the streetlight made his shoulders appear awash with dragons.  
  
“Rosie?”  
  
He sounded so scared, like he was about to back away and make a run for it. Rose’s heart gave a lurch, so profound it jolted her entire being forward far enough for one of her hands to brush the sleeve of her father’s jacket. Her fingers clamped down on the fabric like the jaws of a crocodile on unsuspecting prey. Tommy made a noise half-way between a bark and a cough, and jerked backwards with a look of sheer terror in his eyes; and Rose, refusing to or incapable of letting go, was pulled forward and off the car.  
She stumbled, her head hit his chest and he caught her, his arms wrapping around hers.  
  
“Rosie…” He breathed rather than said it.  
  
Rose got her nails into the front of his jacket and clawed herself upwards, until her fingers were digging into his shoulders. She forced her head up, scraped it past her father’s buttons and his chin, until she could see him above her like a cliff face and search for the deep caves of his eyes.  
  
“What-“  
  
“It’s not true…” Rose whispered urgently.  
  
“Rosie…Rosie, come on…”  
  
He was trying to get his hands under her arms to hold her more easily.  
  
“Listen-” Something wedged in her throat again, rocks made of rain and tears.  
  
“Come on…” He was lifting her, dragging her towards the footpath. “We’ll go into Ada’s-“  
  
“No-“  
  
“Rosie, you’re soaked, you’re-“  
  
“No!”  
  
All of Rose roared into action. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, ripping whatever bits of her battle dress were left to rip in the process. Tommy staggered under her weight but pressed one hand to her side and the other on the back of her neck, until she was so close, she could feel his heart hammering, hear his breath hitching right beside her ear.  
  
“You’ll leave,” she croaked into his shoulder.  
  
“I-“  
  
“You will!”  
  
She tightened herself around him; she’d have stayed on even if he let go, but he didn’t.  
  
“Rosie-“  
  
“No!”  
  
She could feel his chin travelling over the top of her head, felt him adjust his grip on her.

“Orright…” he said breathlessly. “Come on…”  
  
They were turning, turning away from Ada’s front step and back towards the car. Rose buried her face into her father’s shoulder, every bit of her shaking with sobs now.  
  
“Shh…”  
  
Rose felt the scrape of the car door against her bare leg. Tommy’s hand was at her wrists behind his head now, trying to pry her off him. Weeping, she shook her head violently.  
  


“Rosie…” he was pleading now. “Come on…it’s orright, my little love. Just til we get in the car, eh?”  
  
Very, very reluctantly, Rose relinquished her death grip and allowed her father to fold her into the car. He slid in beside her, gently pushing her past the steering wheel, and closed the door.  
  
Rose crumpled. She doubled over until her head came to a rest at the bottom of the windscreen, crying so hard she thought she might drown. Over the racket of her tears, she could hear her father’s own ragged breathing; and through the heaviness of her wet coat, she could feel his hand resting between her quivering shoulder blades.  
  
“Ah, Rosie…” he murmured, barely audible over their joint commotion, “…ah, fuck…Christ…Rosie, my Rosie…”  
  
He pulled her up by the back of her coat, until she was leaning back against the seat; it was easier to get air this way. Rose slipped sideways until her head lay on her father’s shoulder. They sat like this, the rain coming down around them, covering the car and the world until they were at the bottom of the ocean, breathing the salty wet air more slowly.  
  
“It’s not true…” Rose’s words floated through their bubble until they hit the roof with a soft ping.  
  
“What isn’t?” Tommy rasped.  
  
“Whatever they’re sayin’…”  
  
There were rainbows in the droplets of water travelling down the windscreen.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“The dragons…” Rose took a shuddering breath and twisted her hand round a fistful of Tommy’s sleeve. “They’re liars…and I am, as well.”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
“Orright…” Tommy slid down in his seat ever so slightly, just enough to comfortably rest his cheek on the nest of Rose’s wet hair.  
  
“I lied…” Rose exhaled slowly “…to you.”  
  
“Huh.” Her father shrugged, a tiny bit just, little more than a spasm, but Rose could feel it against her cheekbone. “About what?”  
  
“About it bein’ a terrible time-“ Rose looked along the length of her father’s arm and was surprised to find one of her hands in his “- it isn’t…I mean, it is...”  
  
Her head rose and fell as Tommy heaved a sigh as heavy as all the water in the Thames.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Rose said in a small voice.  
  
“Rosie-“  
  
“No,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry, I really am…I didn’t know it was you. I’d never have said it otherwise.”  
  
She watched her father’s hand knead hers and couldn’t feel a thing.  
  
“Who’d you think I was?”  
  
“Dunno…” Rose could see her breath, just a bit. “A ghost, something like that.”  
  
There was an odd sound above her, alarming enough for Rose to straighten up. Tommy had his free hand up, half saluting, half shielding his eyes from a glare only he himself could see. The corner of his mouth, the one that Rose could see, was twitching upwards. It was desperate and had a choking quality to it, but it was a laugh and it left her utterly lost.  
  
“What?” she asked.  
  
“So,“ her father leaned forward with a bit of a grunt and rested his elbows on the steering wheel, peering up at the streetlight and the rain, “ you’ve six different plans to get out of the house in case your old man goes spare – no, bear with me –“ he held up a finger and Rose closed her mouth again “- six different fuckin’ plans _and_ you’d sooner belief in a ghost sitting in your room than your own father bein’ there.”  
  
He was smiling again, but his head was drooping a bit now, getting too heavy for his stringy looking neck.  
  
“So?” Rose asked.  
  
“So?” He tilted his head and looked at her, the shadows under his eyes glowing like purple bruises. “So, you’re not lying – well, you are now, you’re lying about having lied – but you didn’t lie when you said these are terrible times.”  
  
“Yea, they are – but…” Rose leaned back against the seat and stared up at the small pearls of their words and breaths clinging to the inside of the roof.  
  
“But what?”  
  
“It’s terrible,” Rose said, “but it’s no worse than any other time.”  
  
“Huh.”  
  
Tommy gave the rain and the streetlight a final, incredulous glance and sat up. He twisted round til his back was against the driver’s side door and looked at Rose with a slight frown.  
  
“No worse?” he repeated. “No worse than any other time, eh?”  
  
“No,” Rose said firmly, holding his gaze with her own.  
  
“And how’s that?”

“ ‘cause it doesn’t matter…” Rose shifted in her seat and a sharp pain in her foot knocked all her words out of place.  
  
“What doesn’t matter?”  
  
“Nothing does,” Rose said slowly, pulling the words back around her. “It doesn’t matter what happens, what matters is what we think is happening. It’s always terrible, but it’s also always grand, it might be, and it’s always funny and it’s always sad. Everything. Like the magic drawer.”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea,” Rose nodded. “See…it was terrible for Pol and for Ada, but it wasn’t for me. I don’t think it was for Finn either. We were all in the same room, at the same time, but we all saw different things.”  
  
“That’s called perspective, Rosie.”  
  
“Is it?”  
  
“Yea,” Tommy drew a flask from the inside of his pocket, unscrewed the lid carefully and took a slow swig, “and I tell you somethin’ else, if you’ll listen.”  
  
Rose waited.  
  
“It weren’t terrible for you and Finn, because Pol and Ada made up that story about the magic wardrobe-“  
  
“Drawer,” Rose corrected.  
  
“Pardon me,” her father gave a deferential nod. “The magic drawer. There was nothing real about it. It was a fuckin’ bujo.”  
  
“Yea, but-“  
  
“So,” Tommy barged on, “on balance, you’ve to either be lied to or lie to yourself if you want a happy perspective on a terrible time. It’s that easy, eh, Rosie? Just close your eyes to the truth and look away to where the fuckin’ flowers bloom by the roadside and you won’t see the bodies rotting in the woods…”  
  
His face had grown cruel and his eyes were like huge saucers, covered in tea leaves for the reading. Uncle Charlie hadn’t told her of dragon’s in bottles, perhaps it was too obvious to mention.  
  
“Yea,” Rose said after a while. “I used to think that, as well. That they were just buyin’ us time…and that was nice enough, really, even if it was only making times nicer for us.  
But-“ it was her turn to hold up a hand as her father opened his mouth “- then, this morning,” Jaysis fuck, it’d only been this morning, it seemed impossible, “when our Ruby woke up and she was just delighted, that made me happy. And that really happened. That was true.”  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“There’s always good bits,” Rose said. “Even when everything’s fucked, there’s always good bits. You’ve just got to look for them, really, really look. And you’ve to let them  
count, even the small bits. Just because there's bodies rotting in the woods, doesn't mean the flowers aren't there, as well. "  
  
Tommy closed his eyes, rolled his shoulders, flared his nostrils with a deep, sore sounding breath.

“Every cloud’s got a fuckin’ silver lining,” he said darkly.  
  
“No-“ Rose’s jaw tightened in frustration, “fuck linings, that’d be too easy. Every cloud’s got a handful of tiny, tiny specks of silver all through it.”  
  
“A cloud’s just a fuckin’ cloud, Rose.”  
  
“Nothing’s _just _anything,” Rose said, louder now, much louder.  
  
His eyes narrowed and she could see the steam of dragon fire rising in them.  
  
“Yea, it is-“ there was ice in his voice and razor blades “- this car’s just a car. That rain out there, it’s just fuckin’ rain. A tree’s just a tree. You’re just a child. A horse is just that  
– a fuckin’ horse – and I’m just…”  
  
Something caught his eye, something far away in another place entirely. Rose swallowed.  
  
“You’re just what?” she asked.  
  
He looked down for a second, examining his hands where they lay on his lap and when he looked back up at Rose, the sheer defeat in his face near ripped her in half.  
  
“I’m just a bad man,” Tommy said tonelessly. “And everything I touch, everything I fuckin’ touch, my little love-“  
  
“You’re wrong.”  
  
Her father hung his head and gave a hoarse, bitter laugh.  
  
“I’ve blood on my hands, Rosie,” he said. “Of friends and enemies alike…of my own kin. I lie and I rob and my own children are afraid of me.”  
  
“They’re not.”  
  
“Yea, they are,” Tommy said matter-of-factly.  
  
“I’m not,” Rose said. “I’m not. Not of you. Of the dragon, yea, a bit. Sometimes. But that’s not even really you, that’s just the dragon.”  
  
“Ah, yea?” He raised an eyebrow, smirking. “I thought nothin’ was ever _just _anythin’.”  
  
“Dragons are,” Rose said. “Only they look like lots of things on the outside. See, it’s the other way round with dragons. But you’re not a dragon, you’re a man. And no man’s all bad.”  
  
There was a flicker of something very like hope, in the farthest corner of her father’s eye, but the dragon swooped in before it could take hold.  
  
“When the grown-ups were all busy and the children ruled the streets…” He smiled at her and Rose wanted to hide behind her hands.  
  
“That-“  
  
“It was good,” Tommy said. “Before. Your life was good. There was a war on and it was still the stuff of fairytales and then…” he screwed his eyes shut for a moment “…I came  
back and I-“  
  
“You brought chocolate,” Rose cut him off, throat dry and eyes wet. “You showed me how to ride a horse, when everyone else said I was too fuckin’ small…”  
  
“Chocolate and fuckin’ horses…” A sob escaped from deep inside Tommy.  
  
“That’s all I ever wanted,” Rose said with a sob of her own. “Chocolate and horses and a story once in a while…”  
  
He had his hand pressed to his eyes, but there was no stopping it and the sight of tears pouring down his face to match the rain on the windshield, took all Rose’s words away. Tommy’s free hand found the back of Rose’s neck and held on so tight it hurt. They bawled. It shook them like a freight train thundering through a station without stopping and, just like the same train, it was gone as soon as it had come. It left them shoulder to shoulder, gasping for air.  
  
“Fuckin’ ridiculous, eh, Rosie?” Tommy said shakily after a while.  
  
“Desperate,” Rose wheezed.  
  
He laughed, short and croaky. Rose grinned through chattering teeth. Concern flared up in her father’s eyes and he reached over and put his hand on her cheek.  
  
“You’re bloody freezing,” he said. “Get that wet coat off you, come on.”  
  
Rose’s fingers were too numb to manage the buttons, so Tommy opened the coat and peeled it off her carefully. He gave an incredulous shake of the head when he realised  
what she was wearing underneath.  
  
“Well,” he said, slipping out of his own jacket, “no more new dresses for you, chavi.”  
  
Rose shook with shivers as much as with giggles.  
  
“Don’t want new dresses an-anyway,” she said.  
  
“So, I hear…” Tommy wrapped his jacket around her and started rubbing her arms, trying to get some warmth going. “Only chocolate and horses.”  
  
“And stories,” Rose reminded him.  
  
Tommy gave a small smile and turned to settle himself behind the wheel properly. He pushed the button and the car roared to life around them.  
  
“Where’re we goin’?” Rose asked, pulling the jacket as close around her as it would go, feeling the dragon bottle in the inside pocket against her ribs.  
  
“To get you warmed up and dry,” her father said, pulling away from the curb.  
  
“At the London apartment?" Rose asked dubiously.   
  
“Unless you fancy staying in here,” Tommy said drily. “You’ll have a bed and a cuppa tea, what else d’you want?”  
  
“A story?” Rose asked before thinking better of it.

Frowns and smiles and all sorts of things washed across her father’s tired face.  
  
“Fair enough,” he said after a moment.  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea.” He gave her a wink. “But don’t go askin’ me for chocolates and horses now, eh?”  
  
They drove on through the darkness and listened to the rush of the rain and the dragon wings above.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one little thank you for all your wonderful comments - they rock my world and make me want to write all night. Thank you. You all rock.


	24. The Art of Misdirection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You kids have totally bowled me over with you reactions to the last chapter - just, wow. I'm so moved and flattered by all your comments. Thank you so much! This next bit is not quite as explosive a corker as the last, but I hope you'll enjoy it just the same. X

They pulled up outside the apartment and both Rose and Tommy leaned forward to look up its dripping façade, all the way to the teary eyes of the dark windows; until Tommy finally, suddenly got out and around the car, opened her door and his arms.  
  
“Come here…”  
  
“I can walk,” Rose said, blushing slightly.  
  
“You've walked enough,” her father said, nodding at her bare feet. “Come on.”  
  
Rose made to get out of the car and fell back into the seat with a hiss of pain. Her left foot was on fire, even though she’d barely put any weight on it at all.  
  
“Hang on…”  
  
It took a moment of maneuvering, but Tommy managed to lift Rose out of the car without her having to get up. He did knock her foot on the side of the door, however, and she stifled a groan.  
  
“Sorry-“  
  
“You’re orright,” Rose said through gritted teeth.  
  
He’d to put her down on the doorstep to get the key out and the door unlocked. Rose kept her burning foot off the ground, steadying herself with one hand against the wall. The sharp ringing of a telephone could be heard in the office above.  
  
“Fuckin’ hell-“ the key was giving Tommy some trouble “-here we go…”  
  
Her father picked her up and carried her up the stairs as if she weighed nothing at all. Somehow, he got the upstairs door unlocked with Rose still in his arms. She caught a glimpse of the office through the open door as he carried her down the short corridor. He lowered her onto the bed in the back room as gently as he could.  
  
It was dark and quiet; the phone had stopped ringing. Tommy switched on the bedside lamp and sat down on the edge of the bed. He whistled through his teeth and shook his head a little.  
  
“What?” Rose asked.  
  
“Your feet are in fuckin’ bits,” he announced.  
  
Rose propped herself up on her elbows. Her feet were filthy. There were blackish patches on the sides and on top of her toes, where the skin had been rubbed off and dirt had stuck to the exposed wetness. Her father pushed himself off the bed and to his feet.  
  
“Where’re you goin’?”  
  
“To get you a cuppa tea, your feet some hot salt water and meself a drink.”  
  
“D’you have any food?”  
  
For a moment Tommy looked confused.  
  
“I’ll see,” he said. “But I don’t rate your chances.”  
  
Rose waited, listened to the sounds of water running, matches being struck and cupboards being opened; and let her eyes wander around the room.

She’d always imagined the London apartment as a place of high ceilings and chandeliers and, inexplicably, sporting a lot of velvet upholstery. This though, this was just a flat and the only thing a bit fancy about it was that it was meant for one man and not for a family of thirteen.  
  
The phone started to ring again and Rose heard her father swear under his breath, followed by his footsteps crossing over into the office.  
  
“Hello? Yea…yea, I know…no…no, she’s here,” his voice was a low rumble, Rose was straining to hear, “…yea, here with me…no, she’s fine…”  
  
A car went by outside and drowned out the conversation and then, a moment later, Rose heard her father firmly shutting the door on the front rooms. It was warm in the bedroom and the feeling was returning into Rose’s feet, much to her dismay. They were stinging and throbbing and she wasn’t at all looking forward to Tommy’s first aid measures.  
  
“Orright, Rosie?” he called from the other side of the wall.  
  
“Yea…”  
  
Rose let herself flop back onto the bed and felt something hard against her side. She ran her hand along the smooth lining of her father’s jacket until her fingers snagged on the inside pocket.  
  
It didn’t look like much, the dragon; it was in a small, unassuming bottle that brought back vague memories of an aching chest and Polly bribing her with spoonfuls of honey. Rose unscrewed the lid and sniffed.  
  
“Eh, eh, eh, I don’t think so-“  
  
Rose nearly spilled the dragon on the bed. Her father had a steaming cup in one hand and a bowl covered with a plate in the other; there was a towel round his neck and a bottle under his arm. He looked like he was about to juggle at the fair.  
  
“-bloody hell-“  
  
He put his cargo down on the top of the dresser and turned to her, eyebrows practically up at his hairline.  
  
“Can’t leave you to it for five minutes,” he growled. “Give it here. Jesus Christ.”  
  
Rose put the lid on the bottle and the bottle into Tommy’s waiting palm.  
  
“It’s good for pain, isn’t it?” she asked sheepishly.  
  
“Hurting, is it?”  
  
There were a fair few smart arse answers jostling to get to Rose’s lips first; but the managed to bite them back. Her feet were starting to scream for mercy now, the left one was fuckin’ agony, she’d done a number on it and no mistake. It wouldn’t do to get Tommy annoyed before he’d dealt with them.  
  
He took the plate off the bowl and brought the steaming water over to the bed.  
  
“Right,” he said. “We’ll get this done and then you can eat.”  
  
“What’s for dinner?” Rose asked, her empty stomach tightening with interest.  
  
“Cheese and an orange.”  
  
“Bostin’,” she said morosely.  
  
Tommy gave her a twitch of a smile, lifted her feet off the bed and put the folded towel down before lowering them again. He knelt down beside the bed and pulled the bowl of water closer. Rose craned her neck, looking at the steaming washcloths in the bowl with increasing trepidation.  
  
“This might sting a bit, eh?”  
  
“Can we not-“  
  
“No,” he cut her off matter-of-factly. “You leave this sort of thing, it turns into all kinds of trouble.”  
  
Rose looked at her father, chewing her lip, determined not to make a show of herself. He wrung out the washcloth and very, very, exceedingly gently ran it along the sole of her left foot. Rose screamed and tried to pull away, but Tommy’s hand closed round her ankle, keeping it in place.  
  
“What the fuck…” he muttered, his face so near her foot she could feel his breath on her sole. “Rosie?”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“There’s something in your foot, but I can’t tell what,” her father said. “I’ve to get it cleaned, so I can see.”  
  
“Just leave it in,” she pleaded.  
  
“Sit up.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“So you can put your foot in the bowl, it’ll hurt less that way.”  
  
Tommy pulled her up until her legs were dangling over the edge of the bed. He unscrewed the dragon bottle, tipped some of the clear liquid into the bowl and sloshed it around with his free hand. Once the bottle was safely back in his pocket, he sat back on his heels and clamped his legs around the bowl.  
  
“Ready?”  
  
Reluctantly, Rose lowered her left foot into the bowl between her father’s knees. It stung like nothing else, but it wasn’t as bad as having him touch it. Rose gritted her teeth and twisted her hands into the shreds of her dress.  
  
“There you go. You’re a hard woman, eh?”  
  
The water was turning brown-grey-red around Rose’s foot. Tommy took the cloth and carefully slid it under her foot, wiping the ingrained filth away. Rose grunted and hissed, but she managed to keep her foot in the water. By the time her father put the bowl down, it looked like it was filled with some sort of sinister soup. He took the towel from the bed, rested Rose’s foot on his knee and gently dabbed it dry.  
  
“Hold it up for me,” he said.  
  
Rose interlaced her shaking hands in the crook of her knee and leaned back. Tommy put a hand at her heel and examined her foot with a deepening frown.  
  
“What is it?” Rose asked.

“A nail,” her father said. “Right…”  
  
“Is it big?” Rose’s voice was quivering a bit.  
  
Tommy gave a non-committal sort of grunt, lowered her foot until the heel was on the floor and got up.  
  
“Where’re you goin’?”  
  
“To get me glasses,” he said. “And some pliers.”

“_Pliers_?”  
  
“Can’t very well take it out with my teeth, can I?”  
  
“Fuck…” Rose groaned and let herself fall back onto the bed.  
  
Her father returned a couple of moments later, glasses on and sleeves rolled up; pliers in one hand and a rolled-up length of cloth in the other.  
  
“Now,” he said, handing her the twisted rope of toweling. “This’ll be quick, but it’ll hurt.”  
  
“Is this for bitin’ on?” Rose asked, incredulous and horrified in equal measure.  
  
“It is,” Tommy said quietly. “Now, you’ll need to hold still for this, much as you can. Orright?”  
  
Rose’s face felt slack with dread, but she managed to nod anyways.  
  
“Lie down.”  
  
Rose lay back, put the twist of cloth between her teeth, gripped the edges of the bed and closed her eyes. She could feel her father sitting down on the bed, felt him lift her foot  
onto his lap and trap the heel between his legs. The pliers, hard and cold, touched her sole just below her big toe and a white-hot pain shot all the way up to her knee.  
  
“Ready?”  
  
Rose shook her head frantically, her eyes still screwed shut. Tommy’s hand clamped down over her toes and bent her foot back and a second later Rose was screaming and ganging on the cloth between her teeth and seeing stars –  
  
“Nearly done-“  
  
Something cold poured down the length of her foot, leaving a trail of fire in its wake; and then, like a wave receding from the beach, the agony ebbed away.  
  
“Fuckin’ hell…” she sobbed.  
  
“You can say that again.”  
  
Rose let herself be shifted on the bed, until she felt the sting of the water on her right foot; but it barely registered in comparison. Her father washed and dried, he got up and fetched something thick and sticky and coated her feet with it. There was the sound of fabric being ripped into strips and then the firm embrace of bandages being wound around the rawness of it all.  
  
“Look.”  
  
She opened her eyes. Tommy was kneeling beside the top end of the bed now, holding something up between his thumb and index finger for her to see.  
  
“Is that…”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“Jesus fuck-“ Rose pushed herself up until her back rested against the head board and took the proffered item, “-is that a horseshoe nail?”  
  
It was as long as her little finger.  
  
“Either that or from a cart wheel,” her father said, shaking his head. “You’re lucky it went in longwise or it’d have gone right through the top.”

Rose kept staring at the nail while Tommy disposed off the filthy cloths and the water.  
  
“Still hungry?” he asked when he came back.  
  
“Starving,” Rose admitted.  
  
“Orright, well, put that away,” he nodded towards the nail, “and sit up a bit more.”

He retrieved the plate and cuppa and put them on the bedside table. The wedge of cheese had seen better days, it was cracked around the edges and uneven from having bits carved off in a hurry; but Rose snatched it up and bit off an indecent chunk regardless, barely taking the time to chew before forcing it down with a gulp of tepid, bitter tea.  
  
“Slow down-“ her father was pouring himself a drink over at the table “-you’ll make yourself sick and that’s all there is.”  
  
“ ‘s fine,” Rose insisted, muffled considerably as she tried to cram the better part of the remaining cheese into her mouth.  
  
“Bloody hell…” Tommy came over, removed the cheese from Rose’s hand, put it onto the plate and out of reach. “Don’t be a guts, Rosie, it’s not ladylike.”  
  
He pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat, producing a knife from one of his pockets. Rose watched him cut a slice off the mangled hunk and rolled her eyes.  
  
“I’m not five years old,” she groaned as he held it out to her, but she took it nonetheless.  
  
“Could have fooled me.”  
  
“So,” Rose took a more ladylike bite and leaned back a bit more, “who was on the phone? Lizzie?”  
  
“Pol,” her father said. “I’d dress warmly next time I saw her, if I was you.”  
  
“ ‘cause I ruined me dress and lost me shoes?” Rose asked with a weak grin. “That takes me back.”  
  
“No, because you frightened the shite out of her.” Tommy handed her another slice of cheese.  
  
“Did Finn grass?”  
  
“She beat it out of him in the end.”  
  
“The fuckin-“  
  
“Why are you here, Rosie?” Her father cocked his head as if this question had only just occurred to him.  
  
“I…” Rose raised her cup like a shield “…uh…”  
  
Tommy sat the plate aside and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“Can I have that orange?” Rose asked innocently.  
  
“How’d you get here?” The wheels were starting to turn now, he’d had some time to catch his breath, to get over the initial surprise of her.  
  
“The…ah…the train?” Rose kept her face as still as she could. “The underground as well, that was-“  
  
“The train from where?”  
  
“Rugby?” Rose offered.  
  
“Ah, yea?” The faintest crease was starting to show between his eyebrows. “And how’d you get to Rugby?”  
  
“I rode…but, look-“ Rose held up her hands, fingers splayed as if trying to keep an animal at bay “-the horse is taken care of, I-“  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Well, ‘cause I couldn’t bloody well leave it at the station on its tod, could I-“  
  
“No, Rose-“ his tone was hardening by the syllable “-why did you come?”  
  
“To see you,” she sighed.  
  
“Orright…but then, why were you comin’ to Ada’s if-“ he broke off and the creases turned into canyons.  
  
“ ‘cause you weren’t here, were you?” Rose said quietly. “You weren’t here and-“  
  
“Why were you coming to see me?”  
  
He'd dug his teeth in now, he wasn’t going to let it go.  
  
“To see if you were…” Rose made to run her hand through her hair and was met with damp tangles trapping her fingers “…because…”  
  
“Spit it out.”  
  
“It was such a strange night,” Rose whispered. “With auntie Linda and Charlie and that… and I just-“ she heaved a sigh “-I got scared.”  
  
“Scared of what?” There was a hint of softness. She had to look pitiful as fuck, with her bound up feet and her mangled dress and the madwoman’s breakfast on her head, but  
Rose wasn’t complaining.  
  
“Just everything,” she said. “The shooting and the blood and then that strange fuckin’ man-“  
  
“What man?” her father asked.  
  
“Mister Mosley,” Rose said, noting with surprise and a flash of hope that the conversation had taken a miniscule turn towards safer territory. “He…I dunno, I didn’t like him.”

The wheels and cogs were whirring now, picking up speed until Rose could see them dancing behind her father’s eyes.  
  
“Did he talk to you? Mosley?”  
  
“He did, yea. And…”  
  
“And what?” Tommy snapped when Rose didn’t go on.  
  
“He put on my shoes for me,” Rose said almost soundlessly.  
  
“What?” There was no telling whether he thought he’d misheard or hadn’t heard at all.  
  
“Just fuckin’ men in good suits…” something cracked open inside Rose, taking her by surprise and leaving her unable to stop it, “…men fuckin’ _dressing_ me for their special occasions…” her breath was becoming uneven “…shoes and white dresses and fuckin’…like I’m a…like when…”  
  
Her father was out of his chair and beside her. Rose only noticed she was clawing at the front of her dress when he forced her hands down and trapped her wrists in one hand.  
  
“Look at me.” His free hand was forcing her chin upwards or sideways or whichever ways it had to go in order for her to see him. “Look at me. You’re orright. You’re in bed and  
the doors are locked and there’s no one here but you and me.”  
  
“Why-“ Rose willed her eyes open and stared at Tommy’s perfectly still face. “He said…”  
  
“Deep breath,” her father ordered. “Ten deep breaths and then you can tell me.”  
  
The room returned and Rose’s shoulders relaxed a little and breath came more easily.  
  
“He made a speech-”  
  
“You’re only at eight, you’ve two more to go.”  
  
Rose inhaled deeply.  
  
“Did you hear the whole thing?” Tommy asked.  
  
“Yea,” Rose let the word escape along with a lungful of air.  
  
“And what did you make of it?”  
  
Suddenly Rose was glad for the excuse of a final deep, deep breath to get her thoughts in order.  
  
“He was very good,” she said finally.  
  
Her father nodded grimly and a small wave of worry surged up towards the back of Rose’s throat.  
  
“Not what he was saying,” she hastened to add, “that was awful, all of it. But he said it very, very well.”  
  
“Did you understand it?” Tommy retrieved his cigarettes from the table.  
  
“Not all of it,” Rose admitted.  
  
“Any questions?”  
  
Like she was in school, for fuck’s sake.  
  
“Yea.”  
  
He leaned back and blew smoke towards the ceiling, waiting.  
  
“What?” he asked finally.  
  
“Why does Mister Mosley think you’re on his side?”  
  
“Huh…” her father’s cigarette stopped halfway to the ashtray. “Perhaps because I am.”  
  
“No,” Rose said. “You’re not.”  
  
“Am I not?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You sound very sure of yourself, Rosie,” Tommy said.  
  
“I am,” she said calmly.  
  
“Why?” He was shaking his head at her, his eyes narrow as if the smoke was stinging them. “I doubt Mosley’s got more dead bodies lining his path the to where he’s now than I  
do.”  
  
“Yea, maybe…” Rose looked through the smoke and found her father’s eyes. “But at least you didn’t step on them just to keep your shoes from getting dirty.”  
  
For a long while Tommy said nothing.  
  
“So?” Rose asked once the cigarette had burned itself out and there was no more smoke between them.  
  
“So, what?” her father asked back.  
  
“Is it a bujo?” Rose cocked her head. “Are you robbing him? Are you-“  
  
“I’m working with him,” Tommy said. “As a co-founding member of his new political party.”

“Fuckin’ pull the other one.” Rose rolled her eyes. “Is it-“  
  
“I’m not messin’.”  
  
“Yes, you are.”

“Rose-“  
  
“Look,” she interrupted as gently as she could, “you keep it up all you want, but I know it’s not true. Every man’s got limits.”  
  
Her father stared at her, his mouth slightly open.  
  
“Mosley doesn’t,” he said darkly.  
  
“He’s no man though, is he,” Rose said. “He’s a dragon.”  
  
He had the strangest look on his face, her father, as though he was delighted and in absolute agony at once.  
  
“Orright.” He pulled the chair even closer to the bed and leaned forward. “Seeing as there’s no gettin’ past you.”  
  
Tommy paused and Rose bit her lip and waited. He was about to tell her something he absolutely didn’t want to tell her.  
  
“It’s no bujo, Rosie,” he said. “It’s as real as the sores on your feet, because it has to be. I’ve to say things in front of a great many people that no man would ever come out with  
if he didn’t believe it. I’ve to shake hands with abominable fuckin’ creatures and stand by as they do things…and congratulate them after. Praise them to the masses as the saviours of the nation. Let people on the streets and in my house believe that there’s nothing that could come between me and me new brothers in arms.”  
  
“Why?” Rose whispered.  
  
Tommy smiled.  
  
“There’s many ways to slay a dragon, Rosie,” he said. “But you’ve got to get close, no matter which way you choose.”  
  
“Are you close enough yet?”  
  
“The heat’s singeing my lashes,” her father rumbled in a low voice.  
  
“And you’ll slay it?”  
  
“Yea, my little love.” Tommy’s smile grew luminous and menacing at once. “Very soon, I will.”  
  
  



	25. Missis Jurossi and the Dead Flowers of Digbeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some outrageous sweetness. Perhaps borderline gross. Toothbrushes at the ready...go!

He found her a long-sleeved undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts and went to make another cup of tea. Getting changed while sitting down was awkward, but Rose managed nonetheless. Her dress was like a muddy puddle on the floor next to the bed, the skirt torn in five different places, stained with the remainder of the lipstick address, the bodice stained with sweat.   
  
Her father’s things weren’t all that big on her, Rose noticed. The waistband on the shorts was barely loose at all and she only had to roll up the shirtsleeves a little bit.   
Tommy reappeared, set the tea cup on the table and bent down to stoke the fire.   
  
“Better?”  
  
“Yea.”   
  
Rose watched him replace the poker in its stand, get up with his hands braced on his thighs, like his back was hurting.   
  
“Save this for the morning?” He held up the orange.   
  
“Can I have it now?” Rose asked hopefully.  
  
“ ‘course.”  
  
“And the story, as well?”  
  
Her father sighed wearily and returned to the chair beside the bed. He dug his thumbnail into the orange and started to skin it like it was a small, round rabbit.   
  
“Orright,” he said, putting a bit of orange peel into his mouth and chewing pensively. “What about?”  
  
“Is that nice?” Rose asked.  
  
“Nice enough,” he shrugged. “Now, what story d’you want?”  
  
“How’d you pick my name?”  
  
It seemed as good an opportunity to ask as she would ever get. Still, her father stopped chewing and frowned.   
  
“What?”  
  
“Auntie Ada said she wanted to call me Catherine, me mum did-“ he flinched at this, the tiniest bit, but it didn’t escape her “- but you said I had to be Rose.”  
  
“Is that right?”  
  
“I dunno,” Rose said. “Is it?”  
  
“There were too many Catherine’s already,” Tommy said off-handedly. “Everyone was after naming their daughter’s bloody Catherine.”  
  
“There were twelve Rose’s on Watery Lane,” Rose pointed out. “On the even’s side alone.”  
  
“For a fact?”  
  
“For a fuckin’ fact,” she nodded. “Rose Garvey, Rose Boone, Rosie Flanagan, Rosie Jones-“  
  
“Orright, orright…”  
  
“- Rose Stewart, Rosie Gordon-“  
  
Her father rolled his eyes and held out an orange segment to her.  
  
“Eat this and shut-“  
  
“- Rosie Mainlands, Rosie Thompson, Rose-“  
  
“Orright,” he groaned. “You’ve made your point. Grounds of popularity were a rubbish reason.”  
  
“So, why then?” Rose nicked her bit of orange with her teeth and sucked the juice. It tasted of sunshine and Christmas.   
  
She watched her father making up his mind; it was creasing his face all over the place, until he finally surrendered. He took of his glasses and popped another bit of orange peel   
into his mouth.   
  
“It’s a bit of a long story,” he said finally.  
  
“I don’t mind.”  
  
“No fuckin’ surprises there,” he sighed, but he smiled as well. “Right. Has your uncle Finn ever told you about the very first time he won at a game of two-up?”  
  
“No,” Rose said. “What’s that have to do with anything?”  
  
“Every story starts somewhere, Rosie, and this one-“ Tommy gave a one-shouldered shrug “- starts with your uncle Finn beating me at two-up. Five years of age, he’d only   
worked out how to flip the bloody coin properly and he was just delighted. You’d have thought he’d won the pot at the races.”  
  
Something very odd was happening to her father’s face; it scared Rose a little but she couldn’t look away. It wasn’t the first story about ‘before the war’ he was telling her,   
there’d been quite a few when she was smaller; he preferred them to stories about ‘during the war’. And sometimes, when it was a about something funny, bits of his face would soften towards the end; now though, he was barely ten sentences in and he already looked younger than Rose could remember ever seeing him.   
  
“What did he win?” she asked.  
  
“A ride on the fuckin’ omnibus,” her father said with a dry sort of cackle. “That’s what he picked when I told him to name his prize before we tossed the coins. That was a first as well, he’d only ever asked for sweets, and the first time he asks for something like _that_, the little bastard wins. Me whole Sunday afternoon, down the drain.”  
  
Rose raised a skeptical eyebrow.  
  
“_Chapite_,” Tommy insisted. “See, the bus only went from Selly Oak back in the day. But, as your uncle Finn was very quick indeed to remind me, there was no getting out of it. Well over an hour, walking from Watery Lane, Finn on me shoulders for the best part of the way, while Arthur and John went off to the pub. And then we got there just in time to see the bloody thing take off, so now we’ve to wait three quarters of an hour for the next one.”  
  
“Ah, no…” Rose clicked her tongue in sympathy.  
  
“I weren’t thrilled, believe it,” her father said with a wink. “But, you see, Rosie, fortune comes in disguise more often than not. ‘cause as it turns out, we’re not the only ones who’ve missed the bus.”  
  
Rose cocked her head until her father was more horizontal than upright. His eyes were half shut and, even in the dim light of the room, Rose could see that they were looking off to a different place and time entirely. He took a deep breath.  
  
And then, he told her.  
  
He told her about Greta Jurossi, with the wild hair and the dancing eyes and a smile that was as mocking as it was beautiful. The sharpest girl he’d ever met, unwilling to fall for

any line, no matter how smoothly delivered; yet so charming in her delivery that things that might have cut him, made him laugh out loud instead. Greta of the raised eyebrow and the legs made for running and an optimistic fury at the state of the world; a burning anger mixed with excitement for adventure and an unshakeable conviction that change could be fought for successfully. Greta, who’d also come on foot – all the way from Digbeth, where her parents had a bakery – dragging her younger sister along for an   
afternoon of rambling exploration just for the sake of it.   
  
He told her that, once they reached the last stop in Rubery and Greta announced that her and Kitty were off on an expedition through the Lickey Hills, he became willing to carry Finn for miles to come; but that Finn dug his heels in. He’d won a ride on the bus and not a walk through the fields and neither bribes nor threats would sway him. And, of course, a bet was a bet.   
  
He told her that by ten o’clock on Monday morning, he’d been to every bakery in Digbeth until he spotted her behind a counter. That he spent a small fortune, because it smelled amazing and he wanted to impress her; and walked away with nothing more than another one of those smiles that made a man feel like a donkey. That he’d kept it up, day after day, until everyone at Number 6 had pastries coming out of their ears and Greta finally acquiesced to take a walk with him.  
  
He told her about Greta meeting him at the farthest corner of her street; and how, when he delivered her back to that same corner hours later, she told him to come calling at the house the next time.  
  
He told her how he’d bought an enormous bouquet of flowers, one brighter than the next; and how he'd covered them with his jacket until he reached the Jurossi’s front door,   
so they wouldn’t get dirty.   
  
“Did she like them?” Rose asked.  
  
“Aha,” said Tommy. “But they weren’t hers to like, Rosie. I’d brought them for her mother.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Oldest trick in the book,” he said. “If her mother likes you, you triple your chances, any man will tell you.”  
  
Rose smirked.  
  
“So there I am, in me best suit, with the biggest bunch of fuckin’ flowers you’ve seen in your puff and a smile on me like butter wouldn’t melt. _Tommy Shelby, a pleasure to meet you, Missis Jurossi_ – “ her father put on a close approximation of such a smile and looked like a complete stranger for a moment “- and Missis Jurossi throws her hands up and goes: _What sort of a man feels that watching a thing of beauty decay before your very eyes makes for a fine gift?_”  
  
“What?”   
  
“Stopped me dead in my tracks, Missis Jurossi,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “And there’s your mother, enjoying watching me have a good old squirm until she deigns to rescue me. Didn’t start laughing until we were down the road, to be fair, but she thought it was just bloody hilarious. See, Rosie, Missis Jurossi came from a town of flowers – Cavriglia, it was called – had spent her girlhood playing hide-and-seek in amongst the colours of the rainbow, only to end up in bloody Digbeth.”  
  
Digbeth, much like Small Heath, was not a place of flowers. 

“_You try to plant them – they die. You cut them – they die, _she’d tell me, Missis Jurossi, later when I was allowed in long enough to have a cuppa tea. _Dead flowers as far as the eye can see, Thomaso_,_ it breaks my heart a little first thing every morning_.”   
  
He lit a cigarette and a tiny glowing flower appeared in the air in front of him. Rose wondered, whether smoking had been allowed in Missis Jurossi’s sitting room.  
  
“She had a way with words, your grandmother,” her father said. “She was the one running the business, knew everything about everyone it seemed. Could have talked a lamppost into becoming a loyal customer, I’ve never seen anything like it. Mister Jurossi was the one did all the baking, but the missis was the captain of the ship.”  
  
Rose had never listened to anything with such absolute concentration.  
  
“He barely had ten words of English, Mister Jurossi,” Tommy went on, “so your mother or your grandmother would translate, once I was allowed in long enough to stay for dinner. He wasn’t a gambling man, but he did like horses and birds. Kept finches.”  
  
“Did they like you?” Rose asked. “In the end?”  
  
“Yea,” her father said softly. “They must have, she’d have had me murdered otherwise when it came out your mother was after having you.”  
  
“Did they not get angry?”   
  
“Angry?” Her father laughed. “Your grandmother was fuming. Came at me with a bunch of carrots when we told her. She was so furious, she forgot to translate, so there’s your grandfather, sitting at the table, watching her give me a hiding with his dinner, and he’s no idea what’s going on. Greta’s yelling that we’ll get married, of course we will…fuckin’ pandemonium.”  
  
“Bloody hell…” Rose giggled.   
  
“So, there is me with carrot greens all through my hair and then your grandmother stops whacking me and she sits down and explains to Mister Jurossi.” Tommy closed his eyes for a moment. “And as they’re going back and forth in Italian, your mum is whispering in English behind me. They’re disappointed, they’re upset, but not because there’s going to be a child. They’re upset because now the neighbours will think their daughter had to marry. That they’ll never know how loved she is and that she has chosen a good man. That we’ve spoiled it, like impatient children taking a perfectly good cake out of the oven before its time.”  
  
It seemed impossibly sad, but Rose could see the smile tugging on her father’s lips.  
  
“So I sat down with them,” he said, “and I told them that it didn’t matter what the neighbours thought, so long as everyone in this kitchen knew the truth.”  
  
“What was the truth?” Rose whispered.  
  
“That their daughter was loved and that I would never let her forget, not even for a day, that it was so,” her father said hoarsely. “And that I’d make it up to them.”  
  
There was a tickle in the corner of Rose’s eye. She brought her hand up to wipe it away and found she was still holding a half-eaten bit of orange. The tea had grown cold and the rain outside had smoothed into a soft murmur, that made Rose think of the sea.  
  
“And once you were there-“ he looked at her, but she suspected he wasn’t seeing her as she was now “- there seemed no better way to make it up to your grandmother, than to give her the gift of watching beauty grow and blossom. The brightest flower in Digbeth. One that would still be growing when she was long gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapite - it's true


	26. The Inbetween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the emotion explosion of the last three chapters, it was kind of hard to work out how to move forward...so this took an age, is relatively short and not something I feel entirely sure about.  
(Also, I watched the last episode of the S5 to remind myself of the timeline the other day...and realised the car bomb goes off in Birmingham, rather than in London, so I've made some minor edits to the last few chapters - super minor - just for, you know, compliance sake.)  
Hope you enjoy!

Rose woke slowly, rising from a dream of red bricks and a blue door and the smell of fried onions. Her feet felt heavy and there was dust dancing in the sunbeams falling through the windows. She blinked, her eyes surprised and her vision blurred by the brightness; pricked up her ears at a shrill sound drifting through the room. The phone was ringing. In the office on the other side of the hall in the London apartment, the phone was ringing.

The previous day and night came floating back from somewhere in the back of her, filling her stomach with moths and butterflies, and the hollows of her collarbones with   
electric tadpoles.   
  
The phone kept ringing.   
Groggily, Rose pushed herself up until her back rested against the headboard and there were no more fried onions in the air. The phone rang out and suddenly Rose could hear voices and motors drifting up from the street. The sun was up, people were out and going about their business; while Rose was laid up like an eejit, sleeping in until fuck-knew-when (what was the bloody time?) and, by the looks of it, marooned in a deserted flat.   
  
He wasn’t there.  
The phone started up again and brought with it small, fizzy explosions all over her scalp. She swung her legs out of bed and stood slowly, her weight sending aching, dull tremors through her feet as she hobbled towards the office rooms.   
  
  
He wasn’t there.  
The phone rang and rang, sounding more and more accusing and pissed off, but Rose couldn’t bring herself to pick up. It could have been Lizzie, chewing the nail of her little finger in big house’s office, or some cigar smoking secret agent of the crown – both were equally as likely.   
  
He’d left while she was asleep.   
Rose dropped into the chair on the visiting side of the desk, her heart rattling inside her hollow and achy chest. The phone was ringing and the room was spinning and she let her head drop between her knees and forced down as deep a breath as she could manage, while her lungs crackled in protest.

He’d left while she’d been asleep and she was fucking _surprised._  
As if one evening of not being…whatever it was…of not being made from stone or keeping every memory in its box…one evening of having open ears and a lose tongue…fuck it- as if one bedtime story was going to fix everything. She’d fallen asleep so quickly and slept so deeply for so very long; it had been the sleep of the weary and well-protected. It had been the sleep of the bloody stupid.   
  
The phone stopped ringing, but Rose's ears did not.  
He’d told her about her mother – really told her anything worth knowing for the first time – and sat there smoking and looking through the fire and back into the past, while Rose – like a fucking idiot – had let her eyelids grow heavy and slid into her dreams like a four-year-old. And then, he’d slipped away into the night or the early morning, leaving her here.   
  
There was a clock on the mantle over the cold fireplace in the office. It was well past lunch time. He might have been gone for hours. He might have left as soon as she fell asleep. He- stop. Just…stop.   
  
Rose wound her hands into her hair and dug her nails into her scalp until she started to feel a stinging wetness, enough to remind her that her body was all around her and would do as she said, so long as she was firm about it; that perhaps, if she was really, really firm, her mind would obey also.  
  
Miraculously, Rose’s racing mind stilled enough to produce her auntie Ada’s number and her fingers, though rapidly loosing feeling, obliged her in operating the phone. She let it ring and ring and ring. It got so that she could picture the phone on its little table by Ada’s front door so clearly, it was like she was sitting on the steps next to it, keeping an eye on the doorknob, waiting for her aunt to come running in to answer. She waited and waited. After a while, she lay her head down on the desk next to the phone, listening and waiting, the regular rhythm of the signal tone soothing her. So long as she didn’t move it was orright.   
  
But then her back started to ache from the awkward angle and her temple started to hurt from the hardness of the desk. Ada wasn’t coming to the phone. And even if she did, there was little Ada could do to stop the slow frost turning Rose’s insides to ice. There was nothing anyone could do, not really.   
  
Feeling very light all of a sudden, Rose pushed herself upright, hung up the phone and slowly, painfully made her way back to bed. They knew she was here, Pol knew, at any rate and Finn; so, someone would come for her…once they’d found…or once…Rose lost her footing and bumped into the bedside table. It made a sound not unlike the milk cart at the end of its round.   
  
Rose sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled open the bedside table’s small drawer. There were maybe a dozen small, empty bottles in there; well, mostly empty. You could see the dregs at the bottom when you held them up against the light. Her teacup was still next to the bed, with dregs of its own. Rose unscrewed the first small bottle and let the leftover dragon drip into her cup. One drop, two…that was it. She moved onto the next bottle; at the very least she could wait in comfort until someone came bearing bad news.

#

  
Maybe she really had the blood of dragon slayers, because the tears milked from the little empty bottles weren’t even enough to make her fall asleep. Instead, Rose sat on the bed, looking at the wall opposite, watching the pattern on the wallpaper dance and sway to a secret music. The wall was warping in strange ways, becoming see-through, bits of it were.   
“Orright, Rosie?”  
  
He was clean shaven and in a fresh suit, striding into the room with purpose. She could hear the dirt at the bottom of his shoes crunching against the floorboards. He looked pristine, there was no blood on him or anything. He wasn’t wet. There were no welts around his neck.  
  
“How’d you do it?”   
  
She blinked and his edges became more defined, the set of his face more apparent. Perhaps that was how it worked, in the afterlife; maybe you firmed up a bit once you’d arrived properly.   
  
“Do what?” he asked. “Have you been up long?”  
  
There was a clock, all the way over on the mantle…as if mantles were the only places you were allowed to keep bloody clocks…but reading it was impossible. It might as well have been on the moon.  
  
“Dunno…” Rose whispered.   
  
He looked so real. Like you could touch him.

“Orright?” He was looking at her strangely now, as if she was the oddity in the room.  
  
“Where were you?” she heard herself ask.  
  
“I’d to go see a friend,” he said.  
  
“You don’t have friends,” Rose said dreamily. “You’ve only kin and soldiers and enemies.”  
  
He crossed the room now, frowning, his head to the side. There were no marks in his throat, no bits of him missing.   
  
“Are you drunk, Rosie?”  
  
“Nah…”  
  
His eyes narrowed until Rose felt like he was poking her face with needles.   
  
“Come on,” he said after a moment, “up you get. I’ve brought up your coat.”  
  
“Where are we going?”   
  
“Home.”  
  
She slipped into the still slightly damp, stolen coat and followed him out of the apartment, down the stairs and into the car. He was going through the doors, just like Rose had to, he was opening them, as well. It send a little crackle through the softness inside her head every time. The apartment door. The downstairs door. Ghosts didn’t open doors, Rose was fairly sure of this; but maybe they could make it look like they did, even when they actually didn’t. Like some sort of giant ghost bujo.   
  
Rose watched, her head tilted to the side, her mouth slightly open, as he put his hand on the car door. It connected clearly. The flesh on his hand moved to make way for the metal of the door. There were tiny white lines shooting out and his hand was creasing in places and….  
  
“Fucking hell-“ the words jumped from her like they were escaping a sinking ship.   
  
“What?” her father asked.   
  
She’d done it again. Rose could feel her insides going down in the maelstrom of the sinking ship.  
  
“Nothin’,” she said weakly, the pavement suddenly soft as jelly beneath her. “Just…me feet.”  
  
“Still sore, eh?”   
  
Her father gave a sympathetic twitch of the shoulder and held his hand out.   
  
His hand was cool and hard and alive and attached to an arm just as alive, with enough strength in it to hoist Rose into the back of the car. He helped her put her bandaged feet up onto the backseat before he climbed into the front and let the car rumble to life.   
  
Rose looked at the neat parcels at the end of her legs and was surprised when she could wriggle the protruding toes at will. They weren’t hurting, she couldn’t feel them at all; but she didn’t feel too bad for lying. She was a liar, after all.


	27. Matters of Importance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go...momentum regained. Thanks for reading and extra special thanks to those of you who comment, that stuff speeds me up like nobody's business :)

It was rare for Rose to get to the paper first; mostly because her father was always already up when he was home and, admittedly, because Rose didn’t necessarily feel the need to get a headful of bad news first thing in the morning. Perhaps it was because she’d caught up on some sleep at the London apartment or maybe something inside her registered that she knew the façade of the building on the front page; she didn’t know. It didn’t matter.  
It was rarer still for the newspaper to contain an item that had the power to turn her blood to lead.  
  
“Morning, Rosie.”  
  
She looked up from the paper, jaw locked and tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. Tommy was in his coat and cap, checking the time with the casual efficiency of a man ready for another day’s worth of ordinary business.  
  
“Will I give you a lift?” he asked.  
  
“Is this true?”  
  
He replaced his watch in his waistcoat pocket and looked at her, his eyes hard to see behind the glasses.  
  
“What?”  
  
Rose held up the paper.  
  
“Is he really dead?”  
  
Her father’s hand moved to the bridge of his nose, but the glasses were in the way.  
  
“Yea,” he said quietly. “Now, our Ada’s going to be orright-“  
  
“Ada?” Rose interrupted. “What’s it got to do with Ada?”  
  
“He’s the father, Rose,” Tommy said.  
  
If it had been possible for a person’s head to spin off their shoulders just through the sheer velocity of confusion, Rose’s head might have rolled under the table.  
  
“He’s only a kid,” she said. “How can he- wait…what?”  
  
“Ben Younger,” her father said. “The man in the car. He-“  
  
“That’s Ada’s fella?” Rose very nearly shouted. “Jesus fuck…that’s…but…”  
  
She put her hand on the paper, covering the image of the windowless Birmingham office. There were so many words jostling to get out, they ended up stuck.  
  
“Rosie?”  
  
She looked up at her father mutely.  
  
“Who were you askin’ after?”

“I-“ Rose pressed her hands to her jaw, trying to get it to move properly “-Billy’s brother.”  
  
It was Tommy’s turn to stare wordlessly.  
  
“Peter,” Rose whispered, tears pricking the back of her eyes. “Peter Temple, age ten, it says here. It says-“  
  
“D’you know him?”  
  
“Of course, I bloody know him,” Rose snapped, voice cracking. “It’s Billy’s little brother…he…” she cleared her throat violently “…she had him the day they stopped the war,  
Missis Temple, and we thought they were havin’ a party for the baby…”  
  
He wasn’t saying a word, her father, but he’d a hand on the back of an empty chair, knuckles turning white.  
  
“Fuck…” Rose sucked up a whole lot of wetness threatening to escape. “They’ll be in bits…”  
  
Tommy gave the chair a final squeeze and straightened himself up.  
  
“Come on,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve meetings. You’ve school.”  
  
Rose got up mechanically and followed him to the car; her hand black with printer’s ink and her joints aching with sadness.

#

  
They were nearly at the school until her father spoke again.  
  
“They won’t have to worry about a thing,” he said. “I’ll send Isaiah round, he’ll make sure they’re taken care of, the funeral costs and-“  
  
“No,” Rose cut him off.  
  
“If it hadn’t been for-“  
  
“No, I know,” she said sharply. “But he won’t take it, Mister Temple. They’re not like…- they’re honest people, the Temples.”  
  
“And we’re not?”  
  
She just looked at him.  
  
“I can’t not take care of it, Rose,” Tommy said.  
  
Rose leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes for a moment. It was fair enough. It hadn’t been his fault, not really, it hadn’t even been his car. It’d been bad luck and some evil fuckers, but it was the sort of thing that would make a man feel guilty. There were some men could stand a bit of guilt – and then there were those who were more camels than men, offering up their humped backs for the final straws to break them. The men whose skin might split if it was stretched to contain even just one more sorrow.  
Her father pulled up at the curb and the chatter of school girls filled the car.  
  
“I’ll go,” Rose said.  
  
“Eh?”  
  
She turned to face him and was met with an expression she couldn’t recall ever seeing before.  
  
“I’ll go,” she repeated. “They know me, Billy’s mum and the old man. They might not get angry if it’s me, who comes to…to talk.”  
  
Tommy’s face was perfectly still. Rose wasn’t sure if he was surprised or annoyed or something else entirely. She opened her door and stepped outside, her feet feeling hard inside their boots and bandages. He cleared his throat just when she was about to turn and start walking.  
  
“I’ll drive you,” he said thickly.  
  
“I’ll walk,” Rose said.  
  
“It’ll take a good hour,” her father pointed out. “Your feet-“  
  
“It’s orright,” she interrupted. “I need a bit to think. About what I’ll say, you know?”  
  
Something shifted in his eyes, like a curtain falling or a curtain being pulled up maybe. It made her back straighten, the way he looked at her, and her hands still.  
  
“Orright,” he said. “You come see me after. If I’m not in the office, I’ll be at the pub.”  
  
Rose closed her door and watched the car drive away, the taste of wormy apple in her mouth.

#

When Rose had been small, she had been very jealous of Billy for getting to live in the rooms above the pub. They’d spent days lying on his bedroom floor, taking turns to press their eyes against the hole in the floorboards, watching Mister Temple sell the least watered-down whiskey in the country to the old, broken and cowardly.  
Mister Temple opened the door, his eyes hollow and his bones limp. 

“Billy’s not in, Rose,” he said dully. “He’s gone to get our Nora from the station.”  
  
“I…uhm…I’m here to see you,” Rose croaked. “I’m so sorry, Mister Temple. Is…uhm…may I come in? Just for a minute?”  
  
They were never allowed to enter the sitting room back in the day, lest they mess up Missis Temple’s spotless order; so it felt odd being not just in the sitting room itself, but in  
one of the good armchairs to boot. Billy’s mum was in the chair opposite, sitting like the room might explode if she as much as took a deep breath.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Missis Temple,” Rose said softly.  
  
Missis Temple attempted a smile and started to cry silently instead.  
  
“Thank you, Rose,” Mister Temple sounded exhausted.  
  
“Me da sends his condolences, as well,” Rose went on. “He would like you to know that-“  
  
“No.” Mister Temple’s eyes grew hard and his voice remarkably steady.  
  
“I-“  
  
“I’ll not bury me son on Blinder coin,” Mister Temple cut her off.  
  
Missis Temple was shaking her head as though it hurt to move.  
  
“I know, Mister Temple,” Rose said. “I’d never…I’ve not come to insult you.”  
  
“Then why did he send you? That ruthless bastard, dealin’ with God-knows-whom, bringing nothing to our streets but blood and misery – why would he send his kid with money to pay for my…” he roared so loudly, his voice gave out for a second “…for my kid’s funeral? If you’re not here to insult me, Rose, then how deep does a bloody insult have to go before it counts?”  
  
He was a grumpy bastard at the happiest times, Billy’s da, and now that he was hurting and having to be a man about it, any place to put his pain would do.  
  
“He didn’t send me,” Rose said quietly. “He was goin’ to send round one of the lads with enough cash to give your Peter a state funeral and a monument as a gravestone.”  
  
“And why didn’t he?” Mister Temple’s hands were in fists now, huge fists that only took meetings with drunk customers who were as unlucky as they were unruly; but he was no  
longer shouting.  
  
“ ‘cause I asked him not to. Because a good man like yourself shouldn’t have to think about the likes of my family every time he goes to visit his son’s grave,” Rose said. “Because I know how hard you’ve worked to raise Billy and Peter to be good men, like you, in a place of bad men, like…” she cleared her throat “…and I know a solid oak coffin won’t make it hurt any less.”  
  
“Then why are you here?”  
  
“To say I’m sorry.” Rose made herself look at Mister Temple, she could hear him grind his teeth. “Because…I’ve known him, as well, since he was a baby, your Peter. He was grand, he was a good laugh for a little fella-“ there was the faintest wobble in the set line of Mister Temple’s mouth, so small you couldn’t have told whether a smile was comin’ or a frown “- and it’s…it’s just…a shame. That a boy who’s never known a moment’s war in his life, should go like this. That something like this can happen at all, the world should be ashamed of itself.”

They were both staring at her now, Billy’s mum and da; and fair enough, really, Rose herself couldn’t quite belief the things that were coming out of her mouth.  
  
“Thank you, Rosie,” Missis Temple said in little more than a whisper.  
  
“It’s true,” Rose said, wiping the corners of her eyes with her coat sleeves. “And wrong. It’s the sort of wrong that should have weeping people lining the streets.”  
  
“What good would it do?” Mister Temple growled.  
  
“None,” Rose said. “But it might remind us that we still know right from wrong.”

He sighed and for a moment the sadness threatened to rise and spill.  
  
“I can’t-“ he started.  
  
“You won’t have to,” Rose interrupted gently. “There’s other ways.”  
  
“We don’t need a big funeral,” Missis Turner said, her voice cracking. “They can keep their black horses and gun salutes for the important people…”

Mister Turner put his hand on her shoulder, looking helpless all of a sudden.  
  
“Peter was important,” said Rose.  
  
Missis Turner burst into tears and reached up to grip Mister Turner’s wrist like her life depended on it.  
  
“Orright, Rose,” he said, sinking onto the armrest of his wife’s chair. “What other ways?”

#

  
By the time Rose limped into the pub, it was nearly lunch time and the waiting room was deserted. They’d be back in an hour, as slightly better-fed constituents, ready for an afternoon’s worth of grievances.  
  
Rose knocked on the glass pane, right in the centre of the big ‘D’ in distillery.  
  
“Come.”  
  
Her father and her uncle Arthur were standing by the window, smoking. A small parcel wrapped in newspaper was filling the room with a faint smell of pork.  
  
“Orright, Rosie?”  
  
“Orright, uncle Arthur?”  
  
Tommy watched her drop into a chair with a sigh of relief.  
  
“How’s the feet?” he asked.  
  
Rose shrugged, despite the deep throbbing in her left foot.  
  
“How’d it go then, eh?”  
  
“Orright,” Rose said cautiously. “I mean…it was awful, really. They’re hurting-“  
  
“They’ve lost a child, Rose,” her father said. “People hurt for less. You know what I’m askin’.”  
  
Rose took a deep breath.  
  
“They’ll tell the undertaker to send his bill to the Department for Compensation of Innocent Victims of Terrorism,” she said. “So, keep an eye on the post at the London  
apartment.”  
  
“Why’s that?”  
  
“ ‘cause that’s the address I gave them,” Rose said drily.  
  
“Why don’t they send it straight to the Department of what’s-its-face?” her uncle Arthur growled from his spot by the window.  
  
“ ‘cause there isn’t a department for the compensation of innocent victims of terrorism,” her father said. “ ‘cause Rosie made it up.”  
  
Her uncle turned to face the room fully, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.  
  
“And why the bloody hell would Rosie do that?”  
  
“So Mister Temple could accept help he’d have otherwise denied,” Tommy said.  
  
Arthur cocked his head and his moustache twitched the tiniest bit. He picked the parcel up of the table and put it closer to Rose. Her nostrils flared and her stomach growled. She could feel her father’s eyes drilling into the side of her head.  
  
“How’d you know he’d go for that then, eh, Rosie?” Arthur asked. “How’d you know what to tell’im?”  
  
Slowly, Rose reached out, picked up the parcel and started to unwrap a still hot knuckle of stolen pork.  
  
“It’s like steering a boat,” she said with a shrug, “talking to people. Most people, at any rate. You set a course, you stick to it and you go round obstacles til you get to where you want to be.”  
  
“That simple, is it, Rosie?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
Rose met her father’s eyes without flinching. He gave her a miniscule nod.  
  
“Right,” he said. “Have your lunch and then Arthur’ll drop you back at school on his way out.”  
  
“Where’re you goin’, uncle Arthur?” Rose asked through a mouthful of salty meat.  
  
“We’re out of dynamite.”  
  
Rose stopped mid-chew. Before she’d had a chance to make her mind up whether or not he was messing, her father placed two folded sheets of paper on the table in front of  
her. Rose swallowed down the pork with some difficulty.  
  
“What’s that?” she croaked.  
  
“So you won’t get done for comin’ in late today,” Tommy said.  
  
“Thanks,” Rose said slowly. “And the other one?”  
  
“So they’ll let you go early next Thursday-“ Rose opened her mouth but her father stopped her question barely raising a hand “-family meeting. Eleven o’clock.”


	28. Goodbyes

All of Small Heath was out on the street, watching the coffin being driven from the church to the graveyard. There’d been no getting into the church proper, it had been rammed with Temples and neighbours and the children from Peter’s class; so, they parked themselves on a free bit of footpath, Rose and Alice and Helen.  
  
The Department for the Compensation of Innocent Victims of Terrorism had spared no expense. The hearse made Rose think of Snowhite, a coffin for a coffin; and they’d his name spelled out in white flowers. The letters were so large and the coffin itself quite little, so there almost wasn’t enough room. It was enough to rip your heart in half.  
  
Helen was crying before the hearse had even properly entered their stretch of road and Rose’s breath hitched audibly once she spotted Billy walking along behind. He was between his sisters, Nora and Beth, marching like exhausted soldiers, following in the wake of Mister and Missis Temple. She was barely making it, Missis Temple. Her eyes were glued to the back of the hearse, as if only the sight of Peter, whatever was left of him, was pulling her along. There were no tears, not from any of them; but Mister Temple looked ready to tear the street in half with his bare hands, and Missis Temple was wrinkled like a wrung-out towel.  
  
When the procession passed, Billy spotted them – by accident more than anything else, he wasn’t scanning the crowd, he just looked up at the right moment – and gave them a small and infinitely sad smile.  
  
“Fuck,” Alice muttered under her breath.  
  
She was pinching herself, Alice, just above the wrist, digging her nails in hard enough to pierce the skin. There wasn’t a harder girl in all of Small Heath than Alice, it was something she took great pride in, truth be told; but this was nearly killing her.  
  
Helen was holding onto Rose now, trying to keep herself upright. She was nearly done, Rose could tell, and then, when it was time to go to the Temples – well, for Helen and Alice anyway – she’d be calm and sweet and help pass round the tea and sandwiches, helpful as anything. She’d been like that at her own sister’s funeral as well; wept at the graveside like she was never going to stop and then, not fifteen minutes later, she was keeping the little kids amused so the grown-ups could drink and curse the fates until speech deserted them.  
  
Rose let her eyes wander across the street, watching the somber faces watching the dead child be driven by. And then, behind the black picket fence of mourners, she spotted her father. Walking along, following Peter, moving as if in a dream. Like a statue walking around, a solid granite statue of the saddest man in the world. There was none of the righteous anger that tinged Mister Temple’s sorrow, none of the gentle broken-heartedness that made Missis Temple’s grief an act of love and kindness; there was nothing but the dull aching knowledge that nothing could be done to make up for this. Perhaps he’d hoped that the relative splendor of the send-off was going to buoy him, that he’d be able to see the care people still had for each other; and now all he got to see was a dead boy in a box. It frightened her, the grey shape of her father passing unseen behind the turned backs of his people.  
  
The hearse rounded the corner and a moment later, Tommy was out of sight. Helen heaved a wet sigh into Rose’s shoulder.  
  
“Orright?” Rose asked quietly.  
  
Helen held up a finger and took a couple of deep, if unsteady breaths. When she lifted her head and looked at Rose and Alice, it seemed as if the worst of the sadness had been  
washed away.  
  
“Right,” she said, weary still but well on the way to businesslike, “will we go now, Alice? Me mum’s at the pub already, getting the food and things.”  
  
“I’ll watch them put him in,” Alice said.  
  
“Ah, Jaysis…” Helen shuddered. “Sure?”  
  
“Yea…” Alice cleared her throat. “I’ll keep lookin’ for him on the street if I don’t.”  
  
For a moment they just stood, as the crowd started to thin out around them.  
  
“You’ll go with Alice, won’t you, Rosie?” Helen asked finally.  
  
“ ‘course…”  
  
“Come on then-“ Alice sounded almost impatient.  
  
Helen disappeared into the alleyway that would spit her out at the pub’s back entrance and Alice started marching up the road with steely determination, leaving Rose jogging a few steps to catch up.  
  
“Will we have a smoke?” Rose asked, already digging into her coat pocket.  
  
“God, yes,” Alice sighed. “D’you have a nip as well?”  
  
Rose produced the battle worn hipflask she’d appropriated from her uncle Arthur long, long ago; as well as two surprisingly unharmed cigarettes. They ducked into a side street only two corners from the graveyard and sat down on a couple of abandoned crates. Alice leaned her back against the wall, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.  
  
“How’s the nerves?” she asked through a puff of smoke.  
  
“His or me own?” Rose asked back, resting her elbows on her knees.  
  
“What’s the difference?”  
  
“Fair enough…” Rose poured a decent measure of whiskey onto the ground before she took a sip, “I don’t bloody know at any rate. Still alive.”  
  
“More than can be said for some,” Alice said, holding out her hand for the drink.  
  
There was a crunch of boots on grit at the entrance of the alley and both of them looked up.  
  
“Orright, girls?” James asked.  
  
“You’ve some fuckin’ nerve-“ Alice was up on her feet and at him in a flash, jabbing her finger at his chest “- stealing from your mate as soon as you’ll have his dead brother’s fuckin’ sandwiches, you bloody-“  
  
“Keep your hair on, fuck’s sake…” James had his hands up and around Alice’s wrists. “I’m not goin’ to the wake, Jaysis, what d’you take me for?”  
  
“We’ve not seen hide nor hair of you in bloody weeks and now-“  
  
“I’m payin’ respects, Alice,” James interrupted hotly. “It’s nothing to do with anythin’ else.”  
  
Alice pulled her arms free and stood back.  
  
“Orright, Rosie?” James asked, straightening his jacket.  
  
“Orright, James?”  
  
“He’ll not want to see you,” Alice said.  
  
“I’ve told you,” James groaned, “I’m not goin’ to the fuckin’ wake, I’m only-“  
  
“What’s with this, then?” Alice cut him off, motioning at his black shirtfront. “If you’re not going to the funeral proper, then what the fuck is this?”  
  
James just looked at her.  
  
“You’re fuckin’ unbelievable,” Alice spat.  
  
Rose was rooted to her crate. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it suddenly seemed entirely possible that Alice and James would come to blows.  
  
“What would you know?” James asked.  
  
“I know that you’re bloody stupid – and that’s all I need to know.”  
  
“Stupid?” James took a step towards Alice, who didn’t even flinch. “I’m the stupid one, am I? For seeing that there’s a problem when the fat fucks up in the house won’t fuckin’ put their foot down and protect their own people? For thinking it’s a fuckin’ problem when children are bein’ put in the ground by cunts who’ve no business bein’ here? I’m stupid?”  
  
“You’re pathetic,” Alice said icily. “Come on, Rosie. There’s nothing worse than brainless fuckers tryin’ to speechify.”  
  
She’d startled her, Alice, Rose hadn’t expected an order; so, she missed a beat before getting to her feet.  
  
“Rosie knows what I’m talkin’ about,” James said, as smug as Alice had been cold. “Don’t you, Rosie?”  
  
It stopped her, this turn of conversation, it stopped her before her arse ever left the crate.  
  
“Get fucked,” Alice dismissed him. “Come-“  
  
She turned, found Rose still sitting and her eyes narrowed to near slits in an instant.  
  
“Your old man’s come around,” James said with a wink.  
  
“You’re talkin’ out of your arse…” Alice threw her hands up in exasperation.  
  
“Bought us a round after we went to see him at the pub, me and the lads,” James went on. “Remembered me and all. Didn’t he tell you?”  
  
“He…uh…no,” Rose said hoarsely. “Why’d you see him?”  
  
“To see if he needed extra hands,” James grinned. “He said he didn’t, not at this stage. But-“ James’ grin deepened “- he did say he’d look the other way once member  
registration was on, so I won’t have to wait til I’m sixteen.”  
  
“Member registration for what?” Alice asked.  
  
“For a new party,” James said with such glee, Rose nearly cringed. “A proper fuckin’ party with the British people’s interests at heart.”  
  
“Rosie?” Alice glared at her. “What the fuck’s he on about?”  
  
“He- uhm…” Rose’s mind was reeling, but as it turned out, Alice needed little else to get the picture. A dark, doubtful cloud raced across the open plane of her face, but she  
shook it off.  
  
“So fuckin’ what?” she snapped at James. “Just ‘cause her old man’s gone daft, doesn’t make her a fuckin’ blackshirt, does it, Rosie?”  
  
“Alice…” Rose could barely hear herself over the hammering of her heart. “It’s not…”  
  
“What?” Alice’s eyes widened and her voice went uncharacteristically soft. “It’s not what?”  
  
“He’s not gone daft,” Rose said hoarsely. “He-“  
  
An image of her father, weighed down by a blade as long as the dead boy in his box, holding onto the cliff face of his desperation only by the grace of his single-minded desire to slay a dragon, came out of nowhere and stopped her dead.  
  
“What?” Alice said through gritted teeth.  
  
“He’s not wrong,” Rose said. “We can’t go on like this, none of us. It’s Britain first or we all go down with the sinking ship.”  
  
It was like watching a pane of glass fall in slow motion from a third story window, reflecting everything it passed along the way, turning and sparkling for one last glorious moment, before shattering into translucent dust on the pavement. Alice’s mouth dropped open a little, but – for the first time in living memory – she’d nothing. Wordlessly, she turned and started down the alley.  
  
A lightbulb exploded in Rose’s head and, for the fraction of a second, every fiber of her being was poised for sprint. Ready to run after Alice and grab her arm, trap her against  
the wall and plead with her to listen. To be allowed to explain.  
  
Rose held onto the crate to tightly she got splinters in her fingers. Alice was nearly at the corner and she wasn’t looking back. Rose only had to hold on until she was out of sight. That’d be it. It was like watching a bit of herself disappearing down the street, sinews stretching until the distance became to great and they ripped in half. It was fuckin’ agony.  
  
But it couldn’t be a bujo. It had to be real.  
  
Alice reached the corner and Rose watched her go.


	29. Codes of Conduct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking hell, this took FOREVER. Sorry about the wait. Hope you like!

There was a dragon, perched in the centre of her chest. Hard and heavy, pressing down until it was hard to breath. It bored its snout into her nightdress, pierced the fabric with its teeth, attached like a leech and sucked. Her skin was shrinking, every bit of her straining.

Rose’s eyes flew open and for a moment it felt as though she was falling upward, into the pool of light the lamp threw onto the ceiling above the bed.  
Everything was tight, swollen. Her arms felt like they’d never bend again. The weight on her chest shifted, even though the light was on and she was awake and, for one hysterical moment, Rose was convinced the dragon had followed her out of the dream and into the big house.  
Blindly, she reached for the bedside drawer, unable to get it open with her numb, slippery hands, cursing herself for not putting the gun under her pillow again. Or the blade, at the very least. 

The dragon shifted and the weight disappeared. 

“What’re you doing?” Charlie asked sleepily. 

Rose fell back into her pillow, breathing hard and greedily. 

“Nothin’,” she gasped. “Just…go back to sleep. And…” she swung her legs out of bed and sat up “…keep off me, eh?”

She opened the drawer and pulled out the straight razor, keeping her back to Charlie until she’d slid it into her sleeve.

“Where’re you going?”

“Go to sleep, Charles,” Rose said quietly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Her legs were a bit unsteady, but she made it to the bathroom before she had to sit down on the tiled floor, her back braced against the closed door. 

Her arms felt like overcooked sausages; they looked normal, but it felt as if the skin was about to rip in ten different places. Rose rolled up her sleeve, opened the razor and ran it across her forearm. The skin came apart easily, she half-expected a hiss when it did, like air escaping from a balloon. But there was nothing, only a bit of blood. 

Still, she found her breathing slowed and the strain faded a bit.

Rose leaned her head back against the door and closed her eyes. Too much sorrow, that was it. Too much to fit under a single person’s skin. Full to bursting with sorrow, she was, the hungry breath of the whispering dragon already brushing the back of her neck. 

She cut again and felt the sorrow leaking down her arm, felt the whispering dragon fade away as his meal dripped away. Rose smiled.  
It wouldn’t take much more to get her back to normal. Three more maybe. Four. Five tops. The dragon would have to try again another day.

#

With nothing to do, no one to see and no desire to run into James while wandering around town, Rose took to spending large chunks of her afternoons sitting in an empty box in the stables, reading and smoking and waiting for Thursday. 

“Busted.”

Rose gave Finn the finger without looking up from her book. 

“You burn the place down, he’ll skin you alive,” Finn said pleasantly. 

He dropped onto the haybale next to Rose and jumped up like he’d sat on a pitchfork. 

“It’s fuckin’ soaked,” he shouted. “Ah…fuck it…look at my pants.”

Rose smiled and snapped her book shut. 

“They’re fuckin’ filthy now,” Finn groaned. 

“Yea, well,” Rose shrugged, “at least the place won’t burn down, eh?”

She shuffled over to reveal the folded-up sack she was using as a cushion and patted it with her most innocent expression. Finn sat down with much head-shaking and grumbling, but he did sit and he did accept the cigarette she held out to him. 

“What’re you doing here anyway?” Rose asked when they were both settled. 

“Swappin’ cars,” Finn said through a mouthful of smoke. 

“D’you wreck another?”

“Ha-bloody-ha,” he rolled his eyes. “Need the van.”

“What for?”

“None of your bloody business, that’s what for.”

Rose leaned back against the wall.

“It’ll be my business, too, come tomorrow,” she said. 

It took Finn a moment, he’d never been one for keeping track of days and dates and times. Once the penny dropped though, he turned and raised an eyebrow so high it left his face all lopsided. Rose grinned.

“Fuck off, you are,” Finn said. 

“I am.”

“Me arse.”

“You_ are_ an arse.”

“ ‘d he say you could come?” Finn asked incredulous. 

“He did, yea,” Rose said. 

Finn looked at her for a while, nodding slowly. 

“Are you shitting yourself yet?” he asked finally. 

“A bit,” Rose admitted.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Finn said. 

“Eh?”

“Shut up and listen,” Finn said. “Pay attention and don’t say a word. No matter what they talk about.” 

“But-“

“I’m serious,” he cut her off. “No questions either. Anything you don’t get, ask me after.”

“Yea?”

“Yea.” 

Finn got up, brushed his pants off and held out his hand. 

“Congratulations, Ro,” he said.

“Thanks,” Rose said, blushing as they shook.

“No, really,” Finn winked at her, “well done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve to go blow up a nuthouse with the Lees.”

“What?”

“See you tomorrow, eh?”

“Yea…”

Finn was almost out of the box when he stopped, turned and gave Rose a deadly serious look. 

“And don’t be late,” he said. 

“Or what?” Rose asked. 

Finn shook his head, a mirthless smile on his face.

“Just don’t be late,” he repeated. “Not the first time, at any rate.”

#

  
The note was gone. 

Rose had jammed it into her schoolbag, she thought she had, and it wasn’t fucking there anymore. 

“What on earth are you doing, Shelby?” Mister Callahan asked sharply. 

Rose was shaking her schoolbag upside down, emptying its disgraceful contents onto the floor next to her desk. There were many crumpled bits of paper, but none of them the

one she was looking for. There were loose cigarettes and chewed pencils. 

“Sorry, sir…” Rose looked up, her cheeks already burning. “It’s just – I can’t stay today, I-“

“Better things to do, have we?”

“Yes,” Rose said before she could think better of it. 

“Shelby, you have some nerve.”

He was a bastard, Callahan, the sort who was never seen without a ruler or a pointer stick in hand; the sort who missed the good old days when he’d been in charge of a whole battalion of unlucky fuckers. The sort, who addressed them by last name only, like they were his maids rather than his students. 

“I’ve an appointment,” Rose said as steadily as she could. “And I did have a note, sir, I really did.”

“Lost it, have you?”

“It would seem so, sir,” Rose said through gritted teeth. 

“That’s both a shame and completely unsurprising,” Mister Callahan said pleasantly. He was loving this, Rose could tell. 

“Sir-“

“Appointments can be made again,” he cut her off. “It might be an inconvenience, but it isn’t the end of the world. Perhaps it might teach you to keep your affairs in order, because this-“ he nodded to the mess on the floor “-is a disgrace.”

“But-“

“Sit down, Shelby.”

“I-“

“_Sit_ down.”

Rose made to shovel her disheveled belongings back into her bag and Mister Callahan brought his ruler down on her desk with a crack to rival any gunshot. 

“Leave it,” he barked. 

“But-“

“One more word, Shelby,” he dared her. “It won’t be good for you, by Christ, it won’t.”

Rose closed her eyes for a moment and breathed down the urge to tell Mister Callahan to fuck off. It was ten-thirty, there was no time to fuck around any longer. 

“Sir, there’s a car waiting for me outside,” she said. 

Most of the other girls had filed in by now and were watching their exchange with undisguised glee. Mister Callahan smiled at Rose.

“Stand up,” he said. 

Rose stood and held out her hand without him even having to tell her to do so. 

“I have to go,” she said. 

He whacked her so hard, she nearly cried out. 

“I have to go,” Rose repeated croakily. 

“It is a pity-“ Mister Callahan gave her another “- that this should even constitute a necessary measure.”

The door was really not very far at all. Rose was seated towards the back of the room, thanks to the school’s all-encompassing love for alphabetical order, but still…he probably wouldn’t chase after her. 

Perhaps she’d glanced towards the door without realizing, or perhaps Callahan was some kind of dark wizard with mind reading powers; in any case, he whacked her once more for good measure before striding across the room and locking the door. Rose couldn’t quite believe it. 

“Sir-“

“Sit.”

Rose sat, seething and incredulous. It wasn’t possible to be this unlucky, to be imprisoned by the world’s most ridiculous man on the one day when she could absolutely not afford to be. The window became a serious consideration for one unreasonable moment; but they were on the second floor and a broken neck would have been just the icing on this shite cake she needed. 

She’d been stupid about it, Rose realised, closing her eyes and cringing all over. If she’d checked for the note earlier, if she hadn’t gotten flustered…she could have told him she was ill. She could have asked to be excused to go to the ladies and done a runner then. But no…not Rose Shelby, fucking genius that she was…she’d gone with the option of appealing to the better nature of a complete bastard and now she’d have to sit here for the next three-quarters of an hour before she could even get to a phone.  
Rose rested her head in her hands, covering her eyes. He’d not ask her back now, her father, not til she was of age. She’d stuffed it up. Completely.

#

Many, many, many years later, during a drunken argument with a stranger in a country pub, Rose would bang her fist on the counter and declare that miracles – while admittedly rare – absolutely did happen. Her companion denounced her as a dreamer and imbecile, spilling a good bit of his stout on his pants as he did so. Rose, in turn, poured the rest of her own drink over his head and told him that, for his information, she herself had witnessed a solid miracle on Thursday the 5th of December 1929, at ten-fifty am precisely. There was a chorus of laughter and swearing as she got up and walked off a bit unsteadily, but the power of conviction saw her out of the door and into the drizzle. It might have been the only miracle she’d ever come across, and it might not have been miraculous to anyone else present, but to Rose, it would remain proof of a just higher power for decades to come. Relatively speaking.

#

There was a knock on the door. 

Callahan, the moron, called for the knocking party to enter and was momentarily confused when they couldn’t. Finally, he remembered, unlocked the door and stepped into the corridor. There was some low murmurs floating into the room, Rose couldn’t make out a word, no matter how much she strained to hear; and a moment later, Miss Thompson was in the room, closing the door. 

“Mister Callahan will be back just as soon as he can, girls,” she said in the kind of chirpy tone that suggested that Callahan’s house had burned down with his wife and children in it, if he had any. 

Rose sat up straight and started to count to a hundred, stealthily scraping her strewn school things under her desk with her foot. When she got to eighty-eight, she raised her hand. 

“Yes, Miss Shelby?”

“May I be excused for a moment, please?”

Miss Thompson nodded distractedly and went on with the lesson and twenty seconds later, Rose was barreling down the corridor. She hadn’t brought her bag – or her coat for that matter – and there wasn’t a chance she’d be on time now; but there was always the possibility of her father being delayed. 

The cold hit her when she threw a side door open and sprinted across the green towards the gate. The car was long gone, he’d have told the lads not to wait around for her. It didn’t matter, she’d warm up running.

#

Warming up didn’t quite begin to cover it. By the time Rose was coming down the back alley behind the family pub, she could see the steam rising off her pumping arms. Her back was drenched with sweat, her face felt ready to explode, she had a stitch like someone was at her with a bread knife – but she was nearly there. 

She rounded the final corner at top speed and ran full-force into a body heading in the opposite direction. They collided with such tremendous force, they were both knocked onto their arses by the impact. 

“Fuckin’-“ Rose sat up, shook her head and froze.

He was wild eyed and shaking and had somehow managed to hold onto his gun when he went down; he was aiming at her, his hand trembling so violently he was just as likely to get her between the eyes as miss her entirely. Rose very carefully got her hands flat on the ground behind her, bracing herself. They were breathing hard, both of them, staring at each other. 

His eyes were on her now, focusing on her, and a strange flash of recognition moved across his face. 

“Sergeant Major?” he asked shakily. “Why the fuck are you wearing a dress?”

There were other people out there with them, Rose could catch them moving in the very periphery of her vision. They were staying well away, wary of the frazzled fella and his gun; but she was afraid to take her eyes of him. Mad dogs were much more likely to go for you when you looked away, everyone knew that.

“Felt like a change,” she croaked. 

He smiled, desperate and baffled, the gun still trained at her head, still shaking. He’d the lid from a bin in the other hand, like he’d been ready to fight off every fucker in the alley. 

“I-“

There was a shout from behind them and he flinched, looking over his shoulder hectically before staring back at her. He was working the hammer with his thumb.

“Never mind them,” Rose said. 

“Sergeant Major…”

“At ease, soldier,” Rose said firmly. 

Her years of playing army were long gone, true, but she’d done enough of it in her lifetime – with Finn, with James and Billy, with Karl even – that the world rolled off her tongue easily. He wanted to do as she said, Rose could tell, he was begging her with his enormous, dark eyes to take charge of the situation. Very, very slowly, Rose worked herself into a crouch, never breaking eye contact and ignoring the battering her heart was giving her. 

“At ease,” she repeated, holding out her hand. 

He was ready, he was extending the gun ever so slightly; only hesitating because they were pretty much surrounded now. 

“It’s orright,” Rose whispered, resisting the urge to lick her lips. 

The cool metal met her hand; it made her want to weep with relief. She closed her fingers around it, moving it behind her for lack of pockets and or even a belt to tuck it into. 

“Orright, Rosie?”

Rose’s head snapped up and there, his arm round the twitchy fella, was Tommy. 

“Yea…” she said breathlessly. 

The fella seemed properly confused now.

“But…” he looked from Rose to her father and back again. 

“Barney,” Tommy said, clapping him on the shoulder, “this is Rose. Rosie, Barney.”

“Nice to meet you, Barney,” Rose said. 

“There’s two of you,” Barney said dreamily. 

Tommy pulled a flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top and more or less poured a generous measure into Barney’s grin. 

“Yea, well,” he said, “never can go wrong with a spare, can you?”

They got on their feet proper – Rose and her father and Barney – and Tommy motioned towards the lads. Mister Jesus and Curly came up, taking Barney under the arms as he legs started to give way a bit.

“Take him to Charlie’s,” Tommy said. “Rosie-”

Rose spun around.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’m sorry I was late, I-“

“Fuck being late,” her father cut her off. “That was well done, my little love, bloody well done.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and Rose nearly fainted; lightheaded with pride. 

“You see that?” Tommy called out in the vague direction of the loitering forms of Finn and Arthur and a bunch of Lee boys. “That’s how you conduct yourself in a fucking crisis. Take note, eh?”

If it hadn’t been for his hand on her shoulder, Rose might have floated away. 

“Now, I need you to go with Curly and Jeremiah,” her father said, giving her shoulder a final squeeze. “Keep an eye on Barney til he’s out, keep him calm if he wakes up.”

It was only now that Rose noticed the tell-tale set of the jaw, the violent, short breaths disappearing into her father’s nose, the whiteness along the lines of his cheekbones. It made her want to ask about the meeting; but then she caught sight of her uncle Arthur swaying ever so slightly and opening and closing his hands over and over, and Finn pushing his hair back and rubbing the back of his neck, and the gaggle of retreating Lees. He looked so alone suddenly, in amongst all the chaos, with every eye on him to sort it – and sort it now – that Rose swallowed her questions. 

“Yea, orright.”

She left him with a nod and jogged off after her charge and his handlers. They weren't a hugging people at the best of times, so this would have to do.


	30. Peace Pipe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting so close to the end now...holy guac. Thanks to all you fabulous kittens for sticking with this little story, for getting into it and sharing your reactions so freely. It gives me an unreasonable amount of joy. x

He went willingly to the shipyard, Barney, until he laid eyes on the bed in the tool shed and went completely spare. They were having a bastard of a time trying to hold him, Curly and Mister Jesus; he was bucking and digging his heels in, very nearly frothing at the mouth. He’d been woozy on the walk, so much so that Rose had been uncertain they’d get him to Charlie’s before he passed out; now though…fuck…it was some sort of superhuman last hoorah, something they had to ride out now – preferably without injuries – until Barney deigned to collapse. 

“Rosie, there’s a bottle-“ Mister Jesus jerked his head towards the work bench “-get-“

Barney kneed him into the guts and winded him, but miraculously Mister Jesus not only held on, but hooked his foot on Barney’s ankle and got him off balance and close enough to the ground for Curly to practically sit on him. Barney was struggling and moaning in an alarming and surreal register, the sinews in his neck straining, his eyes glued to the bed head. 

“Move, Rosie!” Mister Jesus roared. 

There were straps tied to the bedposts. Barney got one of his arms free and Rose caught a glimpse of his red-raw wrist.   
  
“R-r-r-r-“   
  
Curly was barely keeping the bucking mess that was Barney under control and was starting to look decidedly flustered, approaching a melting point of his own. It snapped Rose out of her trancelike state of morbid fascination. She scrambled past the cluster of roiling man bodies in between her and the work bench, clambered over the bed and snatched up the small bottled dragon resting next to the hammers.   
  
When she spun around, Barney was more or less buried under Curly and Mister Jesus, his head turned sideways, his cheek pressed into the floor. Rose got down on the ground the got her face as close to Barney’s as she could.   
  
“Barney?” she yelled over the huffing and grunting. “Barney! See this?” She held up the bottled dragon for him to see. “Bottled fuckin’ sunshine, Barney. Open up!”  
  
Barney clamped his mouth shut so tight it all but disappeared and started pushing off the floor with such ridiculous effort he very nearly dislodged Mister Jesus.   
  
“It’s fine,” Rose insisted loudly. “It’s…” he wasn’t going for it, not in any way “Orright, Barney. Barney! Look, here. Just fuckin’ look.”  
  
Rose unscrewed the bottle and took the smallest swig she could.   
  
“Not poison,” she said. “Open up…Barney…” the warmest, softest blanket of furry bumblebees was starting to coat the bottoms of her feet “…we’ll only tie you up, so that you don’t float away…”  
  
She was smiling, her whole face on fire with it; she could feel her eyes growing huge and luminous like searchlights on a giant boat.   
  
“On second thought,” she said dreamily, “stuff you, I’ll keep this for meself…”  
  
She brought the bottle to her mouth again and wet her lips with shiny, bitter dragon. Barney’s mouth was back in his face, his lips parting ever so slightly and Rose poured in as much of the dragon as she dared. She’d barely had any, she didn’t think she had, and it was spinning her into all kinds of fairy floss.   
  
“There you go…” she rolled over onto her back, turned her head and found Barney’s face slackening, a squashed smile spreading slowly, “…there you go…bloody hell…this is nice, ain’t it, Barney?”  
  
Barney was lifted up and out of sight and a moment later Rose could hear the creak of bed springs and rustle of ropes.   
  
Curly’s face appeared above her, flushed and frowny, like the moon after a hard day’s dusk.   
  
“D-d-d-d-did you have an-any, be-bebe-beetle?” he asked.   
  
“Yea…” Rose felt like she was melting into the rough ground “…just a little but.”   
  
She tilted her head back, back, back, until her shoulders arched off the ground and she got an upside-down view of Barney, tied to the bed, slack and heavy with sleep. Curly’s words were stop-starting and start-stopping somewhere above her, but all Rose could hear was the deep breaths moving in and out of Barney, every bit of distress gone and washed away.   
  
Maybe not all dragons were bad…maybe, if you already were full of dragons as it was, they could end up feeding on one another. Rose’s head was being tilted back towards her body and someone was shoving something rolled up and soft underneath it and the hands of her temples dislodged something in the back of her and Rose forced her heavy eyelids open and tried to get her boneless arms to push her up…  
  
“He said…” she felt the words vibrate inside her throat, she could hear them through her skin and gristle before they ever made it out into the shed…  
  
“Dream, child…” Mister Jesus put his hand on her head, the cables of his hair swinging above her like Tarzan’s vines. “You won’t be alone.”  
  
Every resolve Rose had ever possessed melted away. Her skin loosened and her heart slowed. It didn’t matter whether they stayed or not. It didn’t matter whether or not Barney chewed through his ropes and made a run for it. It didn’t matter whether or not her father would be disappointed in her for falling asleep. Whatever was going to happen was in the post and Rose could do sweet fuck all about it. It didn’t matter…it was nice.

_#_

_  
Sleep rarely claimed Rose in a hurry. It drove her aunt Pol round the bend and to desperate measures; bells on the hem of Rose’s nightdress, heavy blankets stuffed with goose down to entomb her, stories of rabid mice prowling the floors in the night to maim the bare toes of aberrant children, plunging the house into darkness to petrify her.   
  
Rose never feared the dark, not at home anyway. She knew every sound it made, especially at night when the world fell silent and the house and the people in it started to sing their secret nighttime songs. The low rumble of Finn rolling over and ramming his knee into the wooden bedframe, the snorts and sighs of Ada’s hitching dream-breath, the soft scratching of aunt Polly’s fingernails on the bedsheet as she slid her hand under the pillow to feel for her gun.   
_   
_The nighttime song changed when the end of the war filled the house with returning newcomers. There was John playing the drums at the front door, carrying a weeping cousin or two, in need of more hands and whiskey; the fireworks of Arthur snoring and grunting in the room down the hall and, only a wall away when Rose was in bed, the delicate symphony of Tommy’s bedtime rituals.   
  
The click of something metal on the bedside table, the quiet scraping of an opening drawer, a tick of wood on wood, the hiss of the gas lamp, the tapping, the silence broken by suppressed coughing…Rose pressed her ear against the cold wall, possibilities dancing before her eyes as she went to sleep.   
  
He’d been home for weeks, her father – long enough for her to remember that was who he was - when Rose could stand it no longer and, upon hearing the lamp being lit, slid out of bed and into Tommy’s room.  
  
“What’re you doin’?”  
  
She’d been as stealthy as a black cat on a cloudy midnight and gave Tommy a solid start, but then he seemed to freeze midway. He looked funny, all motionless in the gloom of the room, with his mouth halfway to a pucker and something long and interesting halfway to his lips.   
  
“What’s that?” Rose asked, angling her head to see if the object might make more sense from the side.   
  
“It’s past midnight,” Tommy said, lowering his hand and placing the long thing beside the lamp.   
  
“Yea?” Rose slowly moved closer. There was a tin on the bedside table as well, like for chewing tobacco but without the man on it. “Can I see?”  
  
She reached out to pick up the tin, but Tommy snatched it away and put it into the drawer of the bedside table.   
  
“Back to bed.” He was trying to sound like Pol did when she told Rose to do something, but he wasn’t getting the tone quite right. Maybe he didn’t believe it was going to work…  
which it wasn’t.  
  
“What is it?” she asked, pointing to the long thing.   
  
“Nothin’.”  
  
“Why d’you have it?”  
  
“Go back to-”  
  
“What’s it for?”  
  
When Polly got annoyed, she did a thing with her shoulders. She lifted them high and dropped them with a sigh and squared them away behind her, like she was making herself into a wall. Rose could tell from a mile away if trouble was coming. Tommy – her father, Rose reminded herself – hadn’t been very annoyed with her, not yet, so it was hard to know what to look out for. She’d heard terrible stories about things fathers did when they were annoyed; so, even though Tommy didn’t seem to be getting ready to do any of these terrible things, Rose kept closer to the door than to the bed.   
  
“Rose…” he looked down and shook his head, opening and closing his hands.   
  
“Why-“  
  
“Orright,” he interrupted, bracing his hands on his knees and nodding for her to come sit on the bed. “Come on.”  
  
Rose carefully counted out the four steps from the door to the bed and sat down beside him. Tommy picked the long thing up and held it out between his index fingers. It was almost as long as Rose’s forearm and looked foreign and familiar all at once.   
  
“What is it?” she asked again.   
  
“It’s a peace pipe,” Tommy said.   
  
Rose looked up at him and stared.   
  
“Like the red Indians?”  
  
She’d never been this flabbergasted in her life. Tommy smiled.  
  
“Spot on.” He leaned towards her and nudged her arm with his. “How d’you know about that?”  
  
“From the pictures,” Rose said, her eyes wandering toward the pipe now, her ears filled with the thunder of wild horses’ hoofs. “And Gordon’s got a…a…” she frowned “…it’s like   
a book, but it’s like a newpaper.”  
  
“A magazine?”  
  
“Yea,” she grinned. “He’s that. It’s pictures in it.”  
  
“You know all about it then,” Tommy said.   
_

_“Where’d you get it?” Rose asked.   
  
“Ah,” he waved her away, “it’s a long story.”  
  
“I don’t mind,” Rose said earnestly.   
  
He closed his eyes for a moment, long enough for his nostrils to grow wider and wider and smaller and smaller.   
  
“No surprises there,” he said. “Orright. Move over.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Tommy looked at her, his eyebrows knitted together.  
  
“ ‘cause I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve been running round all bloody day and now a man can’t put his feet up, ‘cause the grand inquisitor’s in the way.”  
  
“What’s a grand ink visitor?”  
  
“Move, Rosie.”  
  
Rose stood and her father swung his legs into the bed, propping himself up against the headboard. He patted the mattress and Rose climbed into the bed and leaned against the footboard, facing him.   
  
“Right…” Tommy threw a bit of blanket over her legs and put the pipe down in between them. “I got this given to me by man I met in France. His name was John Tinton and he was from the Lakota people.”  
  
“What sort of people are those?”  
  
“It’s a tribe, Rosie,” he said. “An Indian tribe. Anyway-“  
  
“Red Indians aren’t called John,” she interrupted. “And they don’t live in France, because France is not the prairies.”  
  
Tommy cocked an eyebrow and his mouth twitched in a way oddly reminiscent of aunt Polly’s squaring shoulders.   
  
“It weren’t his real name,” he said curtly. “He took it on for his dealings with the white man. Like when he joined up to go to France with the American army. Smartarse.”  
  
“What was his real name?”  
  
“Tashunka Ohanzee,” Tommy said. “It means Shadow Horse…or horse’s shadow…one of the two. Fearless man, absolutely bloody fearless. Ran messages in between the different trenches and dug outs, that was his job. Probably the only fuckin’ job worse than being underground. Fast, Rosie, he was so fast it was nearly magic. Used to take his boots of and run barefoot, said the boots slowed him down. Never even nicked his bloody toe, even though he was running over spent bullets and bits of…” he trailed of and licked his lips.  
  
“Bits of what?” Rose asked, spellbound already.  
  
“Loads of things,” Tommy said vaguely. “So one afternoon, the shootin’s not let up for days it seems, there’s Jeremiah and meself, stuck on our tod in a ditch, not doing well by any means. We’ve hardly any ammunition, it’s hot as fuck, we’ve run out of water…it’s no good. So, we have our last cigarette and we decide, we’ve to make a move sooner rather than later, try to find a dug out with some men and supplies in. Only we’ve not a clue where the nearest one might be, because we can’t very well stick our heads out and have a proper look. But we figure there might be someone over at ten o’clock, just behind a copse of trees. So we get our gear on and are about to charge out, when Shadow Horse comes crashing down into our pit. Like he was being dropped from the sky. Jeremiah nearly blew his head off.”  
  
“Mister Jesus did?”  
  
“Yea,” Tommy said with a slight smirk. “Mister Jesus, that’s the one. Anyway. We tell him, he’s just in time, we’re just about to leave and he asks us where to. So, we point out to him where we’re headed and he bursts his shite laughing. Turns out there’s a fresh dug out not two hundred yards behind us, where things are looking much better than at our end. We might want to go that way, he suggests. I ask him if he’s got a message for us from over there, an order…anything really. And he laughs again and tells me he doesn’t.   
Saw our smoke and thought he’d better come get us.”  
  
Rose was leaning forward; her back wasn’t even touching the bed anymore. For a moment she was scared Tommy might stop, but didn’t.   
  
Instead he told her about how he’d caught more glimpses of Shadow Horse over the next few months. How he stood tall when the officers shouted at him for abandoning his boots, how he would sit outside for all his meals, even when there was a pub or a farmhouse or somewhere else. How he told Tommy, when Tommy went to sit beside him one night, that he preferred the company of the sky spirits to that of his supposed brothers in arms, that he’d rather eat under the eyes of his ancestors than amongst the staring white men.   
  
“Did he mind you coming out?” Rose asked.  
  
“Funny enough, he didn’t,” Tommy said. “Maybe because his people aren’t so different from ours.”  
  
“We’re white men but,” Rose pointed out.   
  
“But we’re gypsies as well.” Tommy picked up the peace pipe and it threw a shadow on the wall, somewhat like a crocodile. “See, they used to wander all over, the Indian tribes, some of them. Travelled the land until they’d become a part of it. People, who keep still all the time, Rosie, they forget how to move through the world. They get slow. They stumble.”  
  
“Is that how he could run so fast?”  
  
“Maybe…”  
  
The shadow pipe moved across the wall and Rose’s eyes moved with it.   
  
“Why did he come?”  
  
“How d’you mean?”  
  
“If he didn’t like the white man,” Rose tore her eyes away from the wall and looked at Tommy, “why’d he come fight with them?”  
  
“Because he’d been arrested,” he said. “They caught him fetching back horses that had been stolen of his tribe, called him a thief and gave him a choice between jail or fighting. Reckoned he’d rather die running into a hail of bullets than with chains round his ankles. And, of course, if he didn’t die, he’d come home a free man.”  
  
“Did he?”  
  
“He did, yea,” Tommy said with a faraway smile. “Made it without a fuckin’ scratch, the mad bastard. Ran into him at the ports when everyone was getting shipped back to their own little corners of the world. Tried to buy him a drink, his first drink as a free man, but he wouldn’t let me. Said he didn’t have a taste for it. But then, he pulled out this beauty, and we sat smoking by the water and he told me about where he’d find his people waiting for him with drums and dancing.”  
  
“Is that why it’s called a peace pipe?” Rose asked.  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“ ‘cause you smoke it after the war? When there’s peace?”  
  
For a second Tommy’s smile looked pained.   
  
“Or-“ Rose said quickly when another possibility occurred to her “- d’you have to smoke it so there isn’t another war?”  
  
“Something like that,” Tommy said. “Anyway. That’s what it is. That’s why I have it. Now, nash. Back to bed, off you go.”  
  
Rose slid through the darkness, nimble and silent as Shadow Horse himself, and fell asleep to the song of Tommy’s bedtime rituals and the beating of powwow drums in her ears._

#

  
“Little Sergeant Major…”  
  
Rose opened her eyes, sandpaper lids scraping, and rolled her head to the side. Barney was still securely tied to the bed. However, he was also standing up, like some sort of rumpled Jesus, crucified onto a mattress. Rose propped herself onto her elbows and blinked. Barney was swaying slightly, under the weight of the bed and the dragon.   
  
“What, Barney?” Rose asked.   
  
“I’m starvin’.”  
  
“And how d’you propose you eat, standing up like that?”  
  
In lieu of a response, Barney let himself fall backwards. The bedframe crashed back onto the ground with a deafening clatter, the door was wrenched open and Curly came charging in, armed with a led pipe.   
  
“Wha-wha-what’s-“  
  
“Sorry…” Barney said somewhat sheepishly. “Got hungry, that’s all.”  
  
“Right…” Rose got to her knees with a grunt and to her feet with some difficulty. “What d’you fancy? Will I shoot you a buffalo?”  
  
“Don’t mind, really,” Barney said. “Just no beans.”  
  
“No fuckin’ beans,” Rose nodded. “Right you are.”  
  
She squeezed past the bewildered Curly, out of the doorway, into the cold and the dimming half-light of the late afternoon. There was a strong smell of burned bacon in the air and the faint thunder of buffalo hoofs on the prairies.


	31. Of Mice and Burning Men

There was a hand reaching out of the furnace.  
  
Rose went down on her haunches and leaned as close as the solid wall of heat would permit.   
  
It was blackened and the skin on the fingers had burst in places, and it made her own left hand tingle with memories.   
  
She’d followed the scent of burning bacon into the gin shed, hoping to find her uncle Charlie or Curly making dinner. Or, better yet, Johnny Dogs. He was the best cook out of all of them, Johnny Dogs; it made you want to be a better human being, the friendly taste of whatever he’d killed, skinned and roasted.   
  
It looked like it was moving, the hand; but it was only the ferocity of the flames shaking it a bit. It couldn’t slide deeper into the fire because the ring finger was all bent and twisted, caught in the grate behind the furnace door.   
  
Rose tilted her head, her mouth slightly open. Sweat was pouring down her face now, making it hard to see, and she there was a stench of singed hair.   
  
“Fuck’s sake,” a voice thundered behind her, but Rose was too mesmerized to bother turning round. “Will all the meat burn off the bones?” she asked.  
  
“Get back…“   
  
A hand grabbed onto her collar and dragged her away from the furnace, Rose’s feet scrambled for purchase, she tried to keep them under her - or even just near her - rather unsuccessfully. She ended up on her arse, squinting up at her uncle Charlie.  
  
“Who’s in there?” Rose asked.   
  
“Bloody hell…”   
  
He was standing awkwardly, her uncle, balancing on one leg nearly; his face and eyes filled with enough pain to make Rose forget all about the burning body.  
  
“ ‘d you hurt yourself?” she asked, getting to her knees and turning around.   
  
“It’s orright, Rosie-girl-“  
  
“No, it isn’t.”  
  
She was up now, trying to get under his arm to get him to lean on her. Charlie obliged only as far as taking hold of her shoulder, then he started to drag her towards the shed’s door at the fastest limp he could manage.   
  
“Why-“  
  
“You keep your mouth shut,” uncle Charlie said through gritted teeth. “It’s no good to breathe in too much of the burning dead.”  
  
He got her outside, slammed the door hard enough to rattle the shed to its foundations, and spun on his good leg to glare at her.  
  
“You’re meant to be watching the mad bastard.”  
  
“I am,” Rose defended herself. “Well…Curly is, for the now. He’s hungry, Barney, and I…ah…I thought you were cookin’ something.”  
  
Uncle Charlie just looked at her.   
  
“He smells good, doesn’t he,” Rose said, sniffing the air. The dragon from the bottle was still curled up inside her, purring, radiating warmth and contentment throughout her   
chest. “Is it a he?”  
  
“Yea,” Charlie said croakily after a moment. “That’s a man. A dead man burning and it’s makin’ you hungry. Jaysis fuck, Rosie-girl…”  
  
“I was already hungry,” Rose said with a grin. Somewhere in the back of her head niggled the feeling that this perhaps wasn’t at all funny, but the sunshine dragon was covering it with his wide, sparkling wings. “Can we have some apples?”  
  
Her uncle cocked his head and eyed her suspiciously, leaning closer and closer until their noses were nearly touching.   
  
“Eyes like fuckin’ saucers…” he shook his head. “There’s apples in the kitchen.”  
  
“Bostin’,” Rose smiled.  
  
She turned and found the shipyard in the half-light; and suddenly Rose felt about five years old, back in the enchanted playground of her pirate days.   
  
“Go on,” Charlie said behind her. “And mind yourself when you’re back with our guest, eh? He’s not right in the head.”  
  
Rose wandered off towards the living shed. No one was right in the head, no one she knew, anyway; there was nothing to worry about.  
  


#

Curly was standing by the door, his weapon at the ready when Rose returned bearing apples and a fistful of dried strips of meat. Barney was on the bed, staring at the ceiling, his mouth moving silently as if in prayer or song.   
  
“Orright, beetle?”  
  
“Orright, Curly.”  
  
Barney turned his head.   
  
“No beans?”  
  
“No beans,” Rose confirmed, dumping her cargo onto the work bench.   
  
“I’ve to check on…something,” Curly said quietly.   
  
“On the burning man?” Rose asked, rooting around the workbench for a suitable tool for cutting the apples.   
  
“I-I-“ Curly was drumming his led pipe against the doorframe “-ye-yea…Will you be orright for a bit?”  
  
“Yea,” Rose said lightly.   
  
“I’ve to lock the door,” Curly said.  
  
“Yea, orright.” Rose turned towards the bed and found Barney watching her every move. “We’ll be fine, won’t we, Barney?”  
  
“Yes, little Sergeant Major.”  
  
“See?” Rose smiled at Curly’s wide-open, worried face. “No problems.”  
  
He left very reluctantly, Curly; Rose heard the padlock click shut after three or four attempts only, that’s how shaky Curly’s hands were.   
  
“Right…” She’d found some sort of metal spatula and started hacking one of the apples into quarters. “Apple first? Or meat?”  
  
Barney frowned, considering his options very seriously.   
  
“Can I have both?”  
  
“I s’pose,” Rose shrugged.   
  
She split two thinnish slices of an apple chunk, halfed a piece of dry meat and sandwiched it between two bits of fruit. It looked good enough for her to make another for herself. Things were going rather swimmingly, Rose noted with a smile, she might just manage to please Tommy twice in a day. She slid the spatula into her dress pocket, to free up her hands for serving Barney.  
  
However, once she stood by Barney’s bedside, things got considerably more complicated.   
  
“Hang on.”  
  
She went back to the workbench and found the bottled dragon. Barney clamped his lips shut.   
  
“Just a little bit,” Rose said. “Just enough to relax a bit, eh? Here, I’ll have some as well.”  
  
She sipped carefully, she’d no desire to go back to sleep, and then administered a slightly larger dose to Barney’s obediently opened mouth. Rose counted her breath, feeling the dragon spread its wings inside her. The light in the shed became warmer, tinging everything inside in a vaguely yellow glow. She laid the apple sandwiches onto Barney’s chest.   
  
“Don’t knock them over,” she said. “I’ll untie you now, orright?”  
  
“Is that a good idea?” Barney blinked up at her dubiously.   
  
“ ‘course it is,” Rose smiled.   
  
Carefully she undid the straps holding Barney’s wrists and then, because it seemed pointless to leave his legs attached, she untied his bottom half, too. They settled side by side   
on the bed, Rose and Barney, their backs resting against the wall. The apples and meat went well together, much to Rose’s surprise; in fact, it was probably one of the better things she’d eaten in recent months, years even.   
  
They chewed silently for a while. A mouse came sniffing from somewhere underneath the work bench and Rose tossed it a bit of apple.   
  
“Don’t,” Barney said with a shudder.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“ ‘cause they’re nasty,” he said. “They see everything and they’ll grass on anyone.”  
  
Rose watched the mouse nibble away at its prize; it was the least nasty thing you could imagine.  
  
“It’ll tell them you’ve let me loose,” Barney said with a violent sort of sniff. “And they’ll come and they’ll…they might…”  
  
“Why would it tell anyone?” Rose asked.   
  
“Fuck knows…” Barney’s eyes were glued to the mouse, still working away at the apple. “They’re just…nasty. They did it all the time in the hole…”  
  
“What hole?”  
  
“…I’d try and have a chat with them,” Barney went on, his words speeding up. “And they’d watch and listen and I’d ask them to chew through the straps for me and they’d nod   
and clean their whiskers and nod and then they’d go and I’d call for them to come back and then-“ his breath hitched “-then the others would come. _Barney, Barney, Barney…you’ve been told, haven’t ye? How many times, Barney? _And then they’d turn the light off…”  
  
The lights were flickering in Barney’s eyes now, like he was about to leave himself in the dark. All the hair on Rose’s arms was standing to attention. The mouse was sitting very still on the floor in front of them, it’s beady eyes suddenly sinister.   
  
“I tried not to talk to them,” Barney whispered. “But it doesn’t matter what you do, they still see and they still tell and you still get beaten and left and then you can hear them scuttling round in the dark, laughing at you and…”  
  
Rose slid one hand into her pocket and closed it around the handle of the spatula; with the other, she tossed the mouse another chunk of fruit.   
  
“…they’d wait til I went to sleep to bite my face…”  
  
Rose leapt from the bed and slammed the spatula down on the mouse as hard as she could, chopping it nearly in half. It squeaked and squirmed and squirted and stilled. She looked up at Barney and found him staring. 

“Blimey,” he said after he’d stared a good long while.  
  
“It won’t grass now,” Rose smiled.   
  
Barney smiled back and brought his empty hand up to his mouth. When his teeth bit into thin air, he frowned for a moment.  
  
“D’you want another one?” Rose asked.  
  
“Yes, please.”  
  
They finished off the lot, slowly but steadily, until they were full of food and dragons, sitting and watching the door. Curly was taking his time, but Rose wasn’t worried, he tended to get sidetracked.   
  
“What’s that?” Barney asked suddenly.  
  
“Hm?”

Barney reached out carefully, took Rose’s wrist in his hand and lifted her arm until it was suspended between them. A fine red line, feathered around the edges, was coming through the sleeve of Rose’s white school blouse.   
  
“Looks like a tree,” Barney said dreamily.  
  
“It does, yea…” Rose tilted her head to change the angle. “Or a river, you know, from above. Like on a map.”  
  
“I like rivers,” Barney said. “They just keep going and going…”  
  
They were leaning against each other now, their shoulders touching, watching the tiny river grow slowly, branching out across the white linen plain.   
  
“Where’s it coming from?” Barney asked when the river ran as long as Rose’s index finger.   
  
“D’you want to see?” Rose asked in a whisper and felt the air brush her cheek as Barney nodded.   
  
She undid the small button at her cuff and rolled her sleeve up.   
  
“There’s mountains, too,” Barney said in wonder.   
  
He wasn’t wrong. The healed cuts, even some of the older ones from when Rose had been much younger, were like mountain ridges all over her left arm. It was only the latest one that had come unstuck, maybe when she lunged for the mouse, Rose couldn’t be sure, she hadn’t felt it.   
  
“It’s dragon country,” she said. “The only exact map in all the world.”  
  
“Why d’you have it?”  
  
“So I always know where the dragons are.” Rose closed her eyes, she was feeling awfully tired all of a sudden. “So I can help find and slay them.”  
  
He was breathing deeply, Barney, moving her up and down as his chest heaved. It was like being on a boat, the barge of barmy Barney, carrying her to away to dragon country. It   
was cold now, in the toolshed, but it didn’t matter. Drizzle was drumming on the roof. It was nice.  
  
“I’m shootin’ a man tomorrow,” Barney announced into the thrum of comfort.   
  
Rose opened her eyes and disembarked the Barney boat.  
  
“Are you scared?” she asked.  
  
“No more than usual.”  
  
He was looking tired now, Barney, his eyelids heavy, but he kept forcing them open to keep them on the door.   
  
“You should sleep,” Rose said.   
  
“There’re more mice,” Barney said sadly. “I can hear them.”  
  
Rose got off the bed and retrieved her mouse-smeared spatula.   
  
“They’re welcome to have a go…” she fished the dragon bottle from her pocket and held it out to Barney. “What d’you want to dream of, Barney?”  
  
“Girls,” he sighed. “Girls swimming in the river, ‘cause it’s too hot to do laundry.”  
  
Rose held the bottle up against the light and swirled the contents, narrowing her eyes critically.   
  
“Yea,” she said finally, “you might be lucky. There you go.”  
  
Barney took the bottle, took a solid drink and started to soften almost immediately. He slid and slipped until he was back on the mattress, eyes glued shut with exhaustion. Rose   
watched him for a while, until she was confident that he was knee deep in the river with the girls, before she gently began to fasten the straps around his wrists and ankles again.  
  
She’d knock for Curly – or anyone who’d hear – once Barney was securely moored, at least Rose had planned on doing so, but when she turned her eyes fell on the dead mouse. It was like a magnet; before Rose knew what she was doing, she was on all fours on the floor, her face so close to the mouse she could smell it.  
  
You could see the long back bone, cracked but not broken; and the guts torn and deflated. Its teeth were long and thin and yellow and fully exposed, as if she’d felled it in the middle of a smile. The apple was still stuck on one of its claws, it wasn’t quite holding it anymore, but it hadn’t had the time to properly let go of it either. The fur was soft, but the mouse underneath was already hardening. It had been alive one moment and dead the next; it hadn’t been difficult.   
  
It might have been harder if she’d thought about it; but just doing it, without really wondering what she was doing, it had been easy.   
  
Very gently, Rose pushed the two mouse halves back together. If she held a finger to its head and another to the base of its tail, it almost looked as if the mouse was still whole. There was a bit of a line and a bit of muck on the fur where the cut was, but it wasn’t too bad. You could almost pretend it was just as odd patter in its coat. It didn’t look sinister anymore, not now; it didn’t look like spy.  
  
It was just a mouse. It had been going about its business, doing mouse things.  
  
When she picked it up to cradle it in the palm of her hand, the mouse came apart completely. The little bit of spine that had connected the front and back snapped and Rose was left with a bit of mouse in each hand. It weighed nothing.   
  
Rose knelt on the floor of the shed, her tears dripping down onto the mouse pieces.


	32. Soothing the Ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The closer to the end we get, the more tricky it is...somehow. Sorry about the delay, hope you enjoy!

Rose didn’t know how long she’d been sitting vigil with the mouse in her hands, shaking with cold and the awkwardness of her position, unwilling – or maybe not bothered – to get up. She’d stopped crying a long time ago; she was just sitting, watching the mouse. And then it moved.   
  
Every bit of Rose sang with an icy, electric charge. She narrowed her eyes and brought her cupped hands closer to her face. Moving her hands set the two parts of the mouse in motion; the hind end rolled across the crater of her palms, until the stiffening tail braced against her fingers, but Rose was paying no attention. She was staring at the mouse’s front end so hard it hurt her eyes.   
  
It had moved.   
  
The mouth. The mouth had moved.   
  
Rose picked up the front end of the mouse between thumb and index finger, lifted it until they were face to face. White frosting was spreading over the mouse’s black eyes, but they were following her nonetheless. Staring. Remembering every bit of her face.   
  
That mouse would know her anywhere and at any time.   
  
Behind them on the bed, Barney began to moan in his sleep. Slowly, Rose turned at looked over her shoulder. Barney’s eyes were still closed, but she could see his eyeballs rolling around beneath the lids. He was tied on though but, it wasn’t a problem. Rose turned back to the mouse and the mouse smiled.  
It fucking smiled.  
  
“Fuck-“ Rose dropped the mouse and scrambled away, knocking her back into the bedframe.   
  
Barney startled and kicked up the roar of a dozen men, shaking the bed as he started to buck. Rose copped a knee to the side of her head and threw herself forward and down, covering her head with her hands. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught something scuttling deep under the work bench.   
  
Barney was going berserk above her, but it was the thought of more mice in the room that made Rose’s breath speed up to the point of near vomiting.   
  
There was a clatter. Barney had either managed to rip free a bit of the metal frame, or he’d bounced the bed into the workbench. Rose screwed her eyes shut and waited for the mice to come charging.   
  
Barney screamed like he was having the guts burned out of him.   
  
Rose felt herself tighten until she was the smallest ball she could be. Perhaps the mice wouldn’t see her, perhaps…  
  
“_Rosie_?”  
  
Even from the other side of the door, her father’s voice cut through the pandemonium in and around her. Uncurled, opened her eyes and saw the door shaking, heard the rattle of the chain and padlock.   
  
Fuck.   
  
Rose looked over her shoulder and up at Barney, who was straining against the straps like he was being dragged upwards by an invisible magnet, grunting. He was losing his shite. She was supposed to be keeping him calm and he looked like he was about to burst. Fuck.   
  
This was not rising to the occasion…this was bad conduct in a definite time of crisis. She couldn’t let him see.  
  
“Barney!” Rose scrambled to her feet and for lack of better ideas, jumped on top of Barney, clamping her knees either side of his chest.   
  
“Barney!” she shouted. “You’re orright, just-“  
  
The door flew open, a strap came undone and Barney’s left fist came flying at Rose. She threw herself backwards, but he got her right into the sternum and knocked all breath out of her. Rose fell off the bed, onto her back and lay there gasping.   
  
There were feet behind her, over her, between her and the bed.   
  
“You’re home…” her father’s low voice rumbled into the ghastliness of Barney’s misery.   
  
Rose rolled onto her front and pushed herself to her knees, her hands flat on the ground, her forehead nearly touching the floor as well. She forced air inside her, every bit of her chest protesting. Barney fell quiet and Rose’s heaving was the only noise left to fill the room.   
  
Tommy’s hands were on her shoulders now.  
  
“Head up-“  
  
He got her sitting back on her heels, put one hand under her chin and lifted her head until she was looking up at the ceiling. Something popped in her chest or her throat and air rushed down towards her lungs like an icy river breaking through a dam.   
  
“Hold it-“ her father’s hand locked her jaw and stopped the air racing upwards, “- five…four…three…two….one…”   
  
He took his hand away and Rose let out a stream of air with a slight whistle.   
  
“And in…”  
  
Rose breathed in through her nose. Tommy’s hands were on her elbows now, pulling her up onto her feet. She held her breath and started the count down.   
  
“Look at me,” her father said quietly.  
  
Rose rolled her eyes upwards, letting them rest somewhere in the general vicinity of his chin.   
  
“Let me see your eyes,” he growled.   
  
Rose sighed, met his gaze for a torturous five seconds and dropped her eyes back to floor. Above her – not very far above, mind, he only had a head on her now – her father exhaled with such purpose, she could feel the breeze on her scalp. She was trying to marshal some sort of left-over steel, but everything inside her was spread out and hazy. Tommy’s hand tightened around her arm and steered her towards the door; Rose put up a struggle, but it felt like a half-hearted formality rather than genuine protest. He wrangled her silently out of the shed, it was nearly comforting. Once outside, though, her father needed his hands to replace the padlock and lock Barney in.  
  
“Stay,” he snapped as he let go of Rose, and she did, she leaned against the shed’s wall and waited.   
  
He fumbled, only for a second, as if the padlock was too complex a puzzle to solve; but by the time he turned back to Rose, Tommy’s hands were as still as his face.  
  
“It’s orright,” Rose said feebly. “He didn’t…I mean…I bumped him, see, I woke him up and he was already dreaming and then…I don’t know…” he was giving her nothing “…I   
must’ve…see, he got scared of the mouse, so then, I chopped it up but then it was alive…I maybe didn’t tie him up right, Barney-“  
  
“Jeremiah and Curly did the restraints,” her father interrupted, adding pointedly: “While you were out of commission.”  
  
“Yea, true,” Rose admitted. “But I did them after.”  
  
Tommy narrowed his eyes.   
  
“After what?”  
  
“After dinner,” Rose said.   
  
“You-“ her father shook his head like he had water in his ear. “Did you _undo_ them first?”  
  
“So he could eat, yea,” Rose frowned with impatience. “But then the mouse-“  
  
“What bloody mouse?”  
  
“The _mouse_,” Rose groaned. “He was worried it’d grass on him but then it came back to life and-“  
  
“You are off you face,” Tommy cut her off.   
  
“No, I-“  
  
“You’d a job to do.“ It was an icy type of anger, he didn’t even raise his voice and still Rose found herself trying to back into and, ideally, through the shed wall. “I gave you a fuckin’ task and this is what I come back to.”  
  
“Where’d you go?”   
  
“Never you mind where-“  
  
“And,” Rose went on, struggling to keep her course in the lurching, detouring waves of her muddled brain, “I did do my job, you ask Mister Jesus and Curly and Uncle Charlie – I _did_.”  
  
“Passing out, letting madmen loose and hacking vermin to pieces,” her father spat. “That’s what you were told to do, was it?”  
  
“Two pieces only,“ Rose defended herself. “And it didn’t die, not really and I only-“  
  
“What the fuck was I thinking?” Tommy was rubbing a hand over his face, suddenly pale as a ghost in the moonlight.   
  
“I-“  
  
“Shut up,” he snapped. “I can’t fuckin’ think…”  
  
“Yea,” Rose blurted. “Maybe ‘cause you’re off your face, as well.”  
  
“_What_?”  
  
Her hands flew to cover her mouth, but it was too late, she’d cracked the dragon egg.   
  
“You are…” Rose bit her lip and curled her toes inside her boots. “And…I mean…I understand, I really do, it’s lovely…”  
  
The rest of her ramble drifted away when she saw the look on her father’s face. He was either furious enough to knock her block off any second, or he was in proper agony.   
Maybe both.   
  
“How?” he asked hoarsely after what seemed like minutes. “How’s it lovely?”  
  
Her teeth went too deep into her lip, she tasted blood, but it didn’t hurt. She could feel the blood pooling in between her lip and teeth, filling the gap, turning it into a moat. Or another river, a wild one, running through dragon country.   
  
Slowly, Rose pulled up her left sleeve and showed her father the map.   
  
“Like this,” she said.   
  
His breath hitched almost imperceptibly. 

“See…” Rose knitted her eyebrows in concentration, struggling to get the words in order behind her bloodied teeth, “…it’s the same. I mean,” she glanced up from the map and found Tommy’s eyes wandering the mountains, following the river, “it does the same thing. It takes away a bit of the sorrow. Keeps the whispering dragons away.”  
  
Her father shook his head slowly.  
  
“I lie awake at night, thinking up ways to keep you from getting hurt,” he said tonelessly. “And what d’you do, eh? You fuckin’ hurt yourself.”  
  
“It’s no worse than what you do,” Rose bristled.   
  
“Is that right?”  
  
“It is, yea…” Rose’s tone had softened as much as Tommy’s had hardened.  
  
“How?”  
  
“ ‘cause I just take some of the sorrow out for the dragons to eat,” Rose said in barely a whisper. “But you put the dragons inside you …” she took a shaky, deep breath and found her father’s eyes “…and you let them eat you from the inside out.”  
  
Her father closed his eyes. Rose could hear the dragons flapping their wings inside him. His shoulders tensed as he tried to call them to attention, his nostrils flared as he pushed them down with deep breaths, burying them somewhere below his guts.   
  
Rose let her head loll back until it was resting on the shed wall. Whatever was left of the bottled dragon inside her, it was making her wish she could sleep a thousand years.   
  
“Come on.”  
  
Rose forced her heavy lids upwards. Her father had his hands buried in his pockets, his head down, his eyes hidden by the peak of his cap.   
  
“Come where?” she asked.   
  
“To walk it off.”  
  
He turned and started towards the gates; and, not unlike a dead leaf stuck in a rivulet of winter rain, Rose drifted along in his wake into the cold and darkness.


	33. Walk

It wasn’t a nice night to be out walking. It was wet and it was so cold it was probably snowing out by the big house, turning the disgusting weather into something magical and festive. Small Heath hardly ever got any snow, the factory chimneys took care of any stray flakes before they even had a chance to float into view. Things of beauty had to work hard to get a foot in the door around here, and even then, they weren’t going to last for any length of time.   
  
Her father was charging ahead, walking at a speed most men couldn’t aspire to during an all-out spring; or at least that’s what if felt like for Rose. She didn’t have a coat and she was starting to feel the cold, so she didn’t really mind having to jog to keep up. He seemed much broader than he really was, her father, when you saw him from the back; the cut of his jacket was only part of it, most of the width came with holding his arms like a cowboy lodged in a permanent high-noon stand-off. There was a thin trail of smoke streaming along behind Tommy, he’d somehow managed to light a cigarette without slowing down, and it left Rose thinking of steam trains…wondering if it made her a caboose or a dining cart or….  
  
She was so lost in trying to remember what sort of a train bit she might be, she nearly bumped into her father when he stopped.   
  
“What-“ Rose started but then, once she looked up, there was no need to ask anything.  
  
Mister Mosley loomed on the side of the building, his face a mask of concern and concentration, somewhere between a film star and a doctor about to give an unwelcome prognosis. She glanced over at Tommy, but she could only see the tip of his cigarette and what little of his profile was lit up by its lonely glow.   
  
He was off again before Rose could think of anything intelligent to say. Her brain was still foggy with dragon magic, turning the dark and increasingly deserted streets into paths leading deep into woods filled with all shades of magic. Every illuminated window shone with the possibility of miracles; throwing images of families huddled in quiet comfort away from the weather and the world. Dirt and bits of broken glass were crushed into diamond dust under her muddy boots. The faint orange glow above the roofs, over where the factories were, heralded the rise of a crimson midnight sun.   
  
The further they got from the steelworks, the colder the night became. It was like the giant structure had become the city’s personal furnace, nestled into the sitting room of Small Heath.   
  
They rounded a corner, the Bull Ring came into view and with it a surprising amount of people still milling about, collars up against the icy rain, hats dripping like the entrances to secret caves. Tommy weaved through the disgruntled and delayed loitering outside the station. He passed a group of visibly plastered blokes, smoking under a small overhang; Rose sped up, acutely aware of their eyes coming to rest on her.   
  
“Evenin’, sweetheart,” one of them called out.  
  
Rose crossed her arms tighter across her chest, suddenly feeling completely exposed in her damp school uniform. Another one of them peeled away from the wall, stepped into the rain and into her path.   
  
“Fuck off,” Rose hissed, getting off the pavement and into the raging gutter without breaking stride.   
  
“Ah, no need to be like that, eh?”  
  
He hopped off the curb lightly, like a dancer, suddenly graceful even in his pissed state. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw the others moving from the wall as well now, like a pack of hyenas scoping out at carcass from a distance. She thought she could hear them sniffing for her in the wet air.   
The fella in front of her grinned, took a step towards her, stumbled and dropped like a sack of shite. Rose’s head snapped up and there, blood dripping from his raised hand, stood Tommy. He was breathing deeply and slowly, the very way he’d taught her to breathe when she wanted to keep from panting after a run or a bad dream. Rose could feel her mouth drop open slightly.  
  
On the ground between them, the fella started to scream and swear. His hands were cupped to the side of his face and even in the barely-there light of the street lantern, Rose could see thick blackness seeping from between his fingers.   
  
Her father bent down, grabbed the fella by the jacket and hauled him upwards. One of his mates took a valiant step towards them, but found himself staring down the barrel of Tommy’s gun. For an instant, Rose’s father looked superhuman, holding up with writhing, bleeding man with one hand and holding off his companions with the other. There was no sign of exertion in his face, no trace of fear or hurry. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying. The gang nashed, leaving their mate at the mad man’s mercy.  
  
Tommy yanked the man forward and forced his chin up with the butt of his gun until he had no choice but to look at Rose.   
  
“That was a bit rude, wasn’t it, Rosie?” he asked.  
  
She nodded mutely, her heart going a hundred miles an hour.   
  
“You owe me daughter an apology.”  
  
The fella was breathing hard and bleeding loads, but Rose could see something sparking in his eyes; that odd instinct of a man to preserve a perverse sense of dignity, knowing full-well it would spell trouble.   
  
“I’ll owe her half-a-shilling if you let me at her,” he spat through gritted teeth.   
  
Rose didn’t see what her father did exactly, but he heard the snapping of bone as the fella’s knee buckled the wrong way. He screeched like a dog with its tail stuck in the backdoor.   
  
Tommy cut the sound off with a practiced grip around his windpipe.   
  
Rose looked around. There were people on the street, she could guess at them through the rain and the dark and the steam rising from the manholes, but no one was making a move.   
  
“Rosie- “ her father’s voice was calm and clear “- my left side pocket.”  
  
Gingerly, Rose took a step towards them and slid her hand into her father’s left coat pocket. Her hand closed around a straight razor, the handle smooth and familiar in her palm. She pulled it out and looked up at Tommy, waiting. He slipped an arm around the man’s neck, locking him in place, gripping his hair with the hand holding the gun.   
  
“One eye,” he said. “Or both. Your choice.”  
  
Rose stared at him.   
  
“Go on.”  
  
Her eyes travelled to the blade in her hand – miles away, as if she was looking at it through a back to front spy glass – up to the fella’s terrified, bloodshot eyes darting around with growing panic and then, finally, to her father’s eyes, filled only with a dull sort of patience.   
  
Rose unfolded the razor and the man started grunting and trying to break free. Her shoulders tensed, every bit of her poised for…something…anything…someone trying to come to the rescue. No one was coming though, no one was coming to stop them.   
  
Tommy was looking at her, waiting, holding the fella in position; he frowned slightly when Rose took a step back. She shook her head and, for a moment, feared that her father might insist the way he insisted that Charlie ate his meat and slept with the lights off.   
  
He didn’t. Instead, he spun the fella around, let go of him and at the same moment delivered an almighty punch right between his eyes. He crumpled, whacking his head on the curb with a sickening thud.   
  
“Come on…” Tommy took hold of her arm and steadied her as she stepped over the body. His hand felt hot on her soaked sleeve and he startled, as if he was only realizing now that she wasn’t dressed for the weather.   
  
He slipped out of his coat, held it while Rose slipped into the smokey warmth of the too-long sleeves and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as his steered her away towards a side street. Rose dragged her feet, trying to look over her shoulder, curious to see how long it would take until someone would dare to approach the unconscious body in the gutter.  
  
“Keep moving,” Tommy said softly. “It’s not far now.”  
  
“Where’re we goin’?”   
  
“Family meeting.”  
  
  



	34. Family Meeting

As they were making their way along Key Hill, the drizzle slowed to a stop. Tommy had long taken his arm away from Rose’s shoulders, it made walking awkward and smoking impossible. Rose rarely ever ventured past Newtown, so the street was unfamiliar and new and it was somewhat exciting to imagine what it might look like in the daytime. There were some unassuming buildings on the opposite side of the street; however, their side of the footpath ran along a high, forbidding wrought iron fence.  
  
“Come on,” her father rumbled a few steps ahead.  
  
Rose stuffed her hands into his coat pockets, feeling the razor in the one pocket and a small bottle in the other, and sped up until she drew level with him.  
  
“Where are we meeting?” she asked, sending little clouds of hot breath towards the dry, dark sky.  
  
In lieu of an answer, her father stopped in front of a small gate that looked very much part of the fence, blink and you’d have missed it. The gate creaked as he pushed it inward, the call of the rain-rusty metal roaring down the empty street, and held it open for her. Rose stepped through and onto a gravelly path like a tightrope walker. It was darker on this side of the fence, away from the streetlamps. Big trees were lining the path, shadows rushing between them. Great, rocky teeth littered the clearings in between, chipped and crooked. It made Rose stay close enough behind her father to have the back of his jacket within reach.  
  
“Why-“  
  
“Shh…” he turned and held out a hand. “It’s just down here.”  
  
Sliding her hand into his felt odd as much as comforting. Rose traced the heat of his skin spreading on hers, leaving the bits in between feeling colder than before. He towed her down a smaller, barely-there path, through a tunnel of naked trees, over a carpet of rotting, wet leaves.  
  
They stopped at what seemed to Rose like a random location and, for a moment, they simply remained motionless in the dark, the only sound the croak of the branches in the breeze above them.  
  
“Are we early?” Rose whispered when she was certain there wasn’t another living being here with them.  
  
Her father gave a hoarse, quiet laugh.  
  
“No…” He let go off her hand and crouched down, rooting around for something on the ground. Rose could hear a clinking and the scrape of a lid being unscrewed. “We’re a bit late.”  
  
“Where’s the others?”  
  
“No others.”  
  
Something screeched up in the trees and Rose jumped.  
  
“What sort of a family meetin’-“  
  
“A small one.”  
  
He struck a match and lit a red candle in a jar. It threw a faint flicker on the stone tooth behind it, making visible some carved lettering.  
_  
Greta Shelby, b. 14th December 1895, d. 23rd June 1915._  
  
Rose sank down on her haunches next to her father, one hand braced on the wet ground, the other undecided on whether it wanted to rub the back of her neck or cover her mouth.  
  
Things started to wrestle inside her – feelings, she supposed – rearing up and trying to get to the top of the whirling jumble, leaving her faintly nauseous. Then, with surprising ferocity, a feeling of supreme stupidity broke from the pack and slammed up into her chest. Of course, her mother had a grave. She hadn’t been a gypsy, they hadn’t burned her in a vardo, they hadn’t set on fire all her earthly possessions so that she might go on the road on the other side with all the things she needed. They’d put her in a box and the box into a hole – this hole – and Rose could have come to visit as often as she’d liked, if she’d only had the sense to ask about it. She hadn’t, not ever, she didn’t think she had. It hadn’t occurred to her, simple as that.  
  
Maybe because she’d never quite seen the point in visiting graves.  
  
“Right-“ Tommy cleared his throat violently. “We’ve got quite a few items to get through and we’ve a big day tomorrow, so we’d better get started, eh?”  
  
He’d gone mad. He’d finally fuckin’ lost it. Rose cautiously glanced over, just in time to catch him putting the little dragon bottle back into his pocket. Fucking hell, he’d one in every pocket of every piece of clothing he owned, by the looks of it. Even from the side, she could see his eyes glazing over with scales. He had his cap off, his hair was damp and messy, and he was staring at her mother’s gravestone, possibly through it.  
  
“Item number one,” he announced hoarsely. “Proposition to impose a ban on self-mutilation. All in favour-“  
  
“What’s that mean?” Rose interrupted.  
  
“Self-mutilation?” Tommy asked without taking his eyes off the grave. “It’s-“  
  
“No,” Rose cut in again. “I know what it is. But what does the term cover?”  
  
“You carving yourself up for a start,” her father said drily and, after an odd moment, added: “Yea, she has. The state of her arms, Christ, it’s horrifying.”  
  
A lump the size of a small island rose from the depths of Rose’s guts and lodged itself firmly in the centre of her chest. It was one thing to miss a mother you didn’t really remember; having to carry on being a father without the mother to match was quite another, she imagined. Sort of like having to keep pedaling a bike with one leg missing.  
  
“I know that…” Tommy said quietly. “I know I should have paid closer attention, I’ve no excuse.”  
  
Tingles shot up Rose’s left arm, bouncing of the mountain ridges lining dragon country.  
  
“All in favour of-“  
  
“Hang on,” she said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“What about yours?”  
  
“My what?” Tommy asked, still staring straight ahead.  
  
“Your self-mutilation,” Rose said. “If I’m not allowed, then-“ she turned her own eyes to her mother’s name “- then he shouldn’t be either, should he?”  
  
There was a sharp intake of breath next to her, but Rose kept from glancing over.  
  
“He does,” she said. “He drinks too much and he takes too much of the other stuff.”  
  
In the one photograph Rose had of her mother, _Wild Rovers at the Seaside_, she was a young woman with sharp eyes, looking directly at the camera; and somehow it was easy all of a sudden to imagine those same eyes examining them from the other side, wondering what Rose was on about.  
  
“Opium,” she answered her mother’s silent question. “I don’t know…it blurs all the edges, I s’pose.”  
  
“It’s not the same,” her father argued.  
  
“Yea, it is…”  
  
“It’s not,” he insisted. “It’s like taking medicine to keep a headache away, so you can keep going. What Rosie’s doing is more like…surgery. She’s not qualified, she might  
damage herself…”  
  
The temptation to look over was too great. Tommy’s head was inclined towards the stone, an expression of intense concentration on his face.  
  
“I know,” he said. “I understand that it helps with the pain and the fear and the anger, I understand that. But we can’t allow it. It’s too dangerous.”  
  
“Yous aren’t listening,” Rose groaned. “I’m not sayin’ I should be allowed, I’m sayin’ that if I’m not, he shouldn’t be allowed either.”  
  
“I’ve told you,” her father said, an undertone of annoyance creeping in now, “it isn’t the same. Taking a blade to herself, fuck’s sake, she-“  
  
“It’s no more dangerous than him putting a gun to his head.”  
  
By rights, there should have been a thunderclap. Or lightning striking a tree. But there was nothing, only the silence of the dead and the roar of Rose’s heart pumping blood through her at incredible speed. Her mother, rotting under the ground beneath them, her flesh molten and her bones turning yellow as her coffin disappeared; with no tongue to tell either of them off and nothing but holes in her exposed skull to hear their grievances…she kept as silent as the living shell of Rose’s father kneeling beside her. Waiting for Rose to go on.  
  
“He did, yea,” Rose said thickly. “I saw.”  
  
Tommy’s breathing grew labored, he bowed his head and dug a hand into the wet soil covering his first wife’s leftovers.  
  
“I didn’t-“ he broke off and his hand disappeared into the ground up to his wrist. “Yea, but-“ he ground his teeth and waited “-but I didn’t, did I? I stayed, Greta, I…”  
  
A breeze swept through the graveyard and the trees above them creaked in protest.  
  
“He could have but,” Rose told her mother. “And…” the writing on the stone blurred.  
  
“Do you see the pain I’m causing?” her father asked, the edge in his voice slicing through the curtain of Rose’s tears. “If it weren’t for me-“  
  
“He’s being stupid,” Rose croaked. “You’re right, he’s being so, so fuckin’ stupid…sorry…he is but.”  
  
She allowed some time to pass, hoping that her father might be hearing some sense drifting from the bottom of the grave.  
  
“ ‘cause he’s pretending,” she went on shakily. “He’s pretending that I’d be better of without him, he does it all the time. But-“ she took a deep breath “-I wouldn’t be. I’d be all alone and missing him and no better off at all. You tell him.”  
  
Beside her, Tommy folded in on himself until his forehead was touching the ground. Sound was drifting up towards Rose, words he was muttering into the soil, but she couldn’t make them out. She bent forward, trying to listen and ended up with her head on the grave as well; leaving both of them, side by side, bowing in the storm, searching an embrace that would never come.  
  
It was a long while until Tommy righted himself, his face smeared with dirt, his hands still burrowed into the soil.  
  
“Right,” he said with a cough. “Does anyone have anything further to say?”  
  
Rose knelt up, brushed her muddy hair from her face and shook her head.  
  
“Orright then…” Tommy sounded bone weary, “…allow me to put forth the following proposition. It’s apparent that this matter will require more in-depth discussion in order to  
arrive at a viable plan of action suitable to all parties. However, we are currently in a state of emergency.”  
  
“We are?” Rose asked.  
  
“We are, yea,” he said. “But we won’t be for much longer. The state of emergency will end, to an extent, after the rally at Bingley Hall tomorrow.”  
  
The giant visage of Mister Mosley, staring down from the enormous placards covering the walls of Small Heath and its surrounds, flared up in Rose’s head.  
  
“Why?” she asked cautiously.  
  
“Because our friend Barney is going to put a bullet in Mosley’s head,” her father said. “Tomorrow we’ll slay the dragon, Rosie, and then, once that threat’s been removed, we’ll have another family meeting and we’ll address item one in the depth it’s due.”  
  
“Barney’s goin’ to shoot Mister Mosley?” Rose stared at her father, mouth open, eyes wide. “Barney?”  
  
“Yes-”  
  
“Fuck…”  
  
“-and after, we will work this out,” Tommy continued. “Does that sound fair?”  
  
“What if-“  
  
“No ifs,” he cut her off. “No ifs and no buts. Orright?”  
  
There was more than a flutter of new worry setting Rose’s guts alive.  
  
“Orright,” she whispered. “And then…we come back here? To have another meeting? About slaying the other dragons?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“D’you promise me?”  
  
Tommy’s chest rose and fell with a breath so deep it had to give all the dragons inside him the chills.  
  
“I do,” he said solemnly. “One dragon at a time, you and me together, as long as it takes us.”  
  
Rose pushed down the rising tide of worry inside her.  
  
“Orright…” She turned and gave her mother’s grave a shaky smile. “You heard him, eh? We’ll not let him off the hook, will we, mum?”  
  
Her father coughed again, hard, and pushed himself to his feet. He offered a hand to Rose and pulled her up.  
  
“See ye,” Rose whispered as he led her away, an arm round her shoulders.  
  
They made their way through the darkness, heading back to the flickering lights of the street, away from the sad sighs in the graveyard air. It’d be orright. It didn’t feel like it would be, but you had to make yourself believe, no matter what the voices told you. It’d be orright, because he’d promised. That was all there was to it. It’d be orright.


	35. Family Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Christmas - and because the chapter after this will be the last - a little bit of sweetness. As sweet as it'll get, at any rate. Ho-ho-ho, friends, ho-ho-ho.

They walked back to the shipyard, the streets mostly deserted now, even round the station and the bull ring. Rose was limping slightly, the last rawness of her feet growling for her to stop moving, a deep sort of tiredness settling into her bones. She leaned into her father, letting him bear her along, letting him lengthen her strides. He didn’t speak – and nor did she – but he kept his arm around her until they were at the fire. Uncle Charlie, his arms wrapped round himself like a blanket and his cracked leg up on a crate, opened an eye and peered over at them.  
  
“And where’ve you two been?”   
  
“Out walkin’.” Tommy rolled his arm away from Rose’s shoulders and started patting himself down for cigarettes.   
  
“Lovely,” Charlie said darkly.   
  
“Our guest?” Tommy asked  
  
“He’s mad as ten bastards.”  
  
“Been up, has he?”   
  
Rose, swaying slightly but not bothered enough to sit down, sniffed the air. It still smelled delicious.   
  
“He was, yea,” Charlie grumbled.   
  
“Orright?”  
  
“Fuckin’ peachy…”  
  
“Are you burnin’ another dead man?” Rose asked.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father’s hand stop dead half-way to his mouth, his cigarette like a spark from the fire stopped in its tracks. Her uncle Charlie looked at her for a moment, his eyes dark and serious.  
  
“No,” he said finally, “Johnny Dogs is cookin’.”  
  
“Really?” Rose’s stomach lurched with hope.   
  
“Yea-“  
  
“What d’you mean, is he burning another dead man?” Tommy interrupted.

“You know…” Rose shrugged. “They’d a fella in the furnace earlier. What’s he cookin’?”  
  
“You get that look of your face, Thomas-“ Rose turned and saw her father giving Charlie something half-way between the evil eye and a silent S.O.S, “- if you didn’t want horse shite on her boots, you might have kept her out of the stables, eh? It’s too bloody late now.”  
  
For a second, Rose held her breath, waiting for her father to do…something. Growl back, break Uncle Charlie’s leg all the way through, shoot him…anything. But all he did was rub the back of his neck and examine the tips of his shoes. The rings under his eyes were almost black in the flickering light of the fire.  
  
Johnny Dogs emerged from the darkness, balancing a bowl in each hand, bringing with him a smell that made Rose want to throw herself upon him like a lioness of her prey.   
  
“Just in time…”   
  
He was grinning, Johnny Dogs, but then, as he came closer, his expression soured, his eyebrows knitted together, until he had a full-blown frown on his face.   
  
“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked, looking Rose and Tommy up and down. “Teaching the girl to tunnel now, are ye?”  
  
“Fuck off,” Tommy said wearily.   
  
They were covered in graveyard mud, Rose realised, both of them, their hands, their faces, the fronts of their clothes. She wondered how much of her mother’s essence had seeped into the earth, whether they’d brought some of her with them; whether this was why her father wasn’t biting as much as he might have otherwise.   
  
“Well, I’m not feedin’ you filthy like this,” Johnny Dogs announced.   
  
Rose smiled despite herself. It was easy to forget that deep down inside Johnny Dogs, hidden beneath the armor of unflappable roughness, lived an old woman, who liked for things to be done properly. When she reared her head, Nanna Dogs, it was best to pull your own in and do as you were told.   
  
“I’ve no other clothes,” Rose said.   
  
Johnny Dogs heaved a sigh and put the bowls down on the upside-down crate next to Charlie’s chair.   
  
“Hands and face,” he commanded. “At the very least.”  
  
“There’s clothes in the chest,” Uncle Charlie rumbled.  
  
“There you fuckin’ go,” Johnny Dogs said. “No excuses now and hurry the fuck up, I’m starvin’.”  
  
“Come on, Rosie…“ Tommy stepped around the fire and nodded for her to follow. “Before we get a hiding.”  
  
Rose dissolved into manic giggles, making her feet unsteady.   
  
“And you’ll be fuckin’ having some, Tom,” Johnny Dogs called after them. “Can’t go into battle runnin’ on bloody fumes.”

#

Inside the living shed, Rose put the kettle on and dug the washing bowl from under the sink. Tommy disappeared into the back room and returned a few moments later bearing two grey woolen jumpers and balls of dry socks. Rose retrieved a bar of soap from the window sill, Tommy peeled off his muddy jacket and hung it on the back of a chair, frowning at the state of it in distaste. They stepped past each other, so Rose could sit down to get her sodden boots off and shell her aching feet off the wetness of her stockings. The kettle began to steam and Tommy poured the water into the bowl; Rose passed him the jug of water sitting on the table and he poured some of that as well, testing the heat with his free hand.   
  
He looked over his shoulder and Rose waved him off.  
  
“You first,” she said.   
  
Washing straight away would mean standing up and now that she was sitting, Rose’s legs were rather insistent on her remaining this way. She shrugged out of her coat and examined the state of her uniform. It was damp and dirty and suddenly very, very cold. Tommy rolled up his shirt sleeves, lathered up and proceeded to cleanse himself of the graveyard. Rose leaned over until she could reach the tea towel hooked on the wall, tossed it to her father when he was done washing.   
  
“You’re up,” he said.   
  
Rose pushed herself off the chair, groaning like an old woman; her father rolled his eyes and disappeared into one of the jumpers.   
  
“I’ll find you some trousers, eh?” he said when he resurfaced.   
  
Rose nodded and plunged her hands into the bowl, feeling the sting as the warm water thawed her frozen fingers. By the time she was done, the water was brown and Tommy was back, holding a pair of black trousers and suspenders. He put them on the table, turned a chair around, sat down with his back to her and lit a cigarette.   
  
Though too big, the feeling of dry clothes was like a sunrise on Rose’s skin; albeit a scratchy sunrise, thanks to the coarse wool of the jumper.   
  
“Done,” she said, pulling the suspenders over her shoulders.   
  
Her father turned and smirked.   
  
“What?” Rose asked.  
  
“You look like Charlie bloody Chaplin.”  
  
Rose turned out her feet, bowed her legs and shuffled towards the door like a penguin, swinging an invisible cane.   
  
“You’re a fuckin’ goose…” Tommy threw a pair of balled up socks at her, Rose caught them and sat down on the floor. “I’ve met him, did you know?”  
  
“Charlie bloody Chaplin?” She stopped, one foot halfway into a sock.   
  
“Yea.”  
  
“Huh…” Rose put her sock all the way on and reached for a boot. “Did you talk to him?”  
  
“A bit.”  
  
“Was it odd?”  
  
Her father cocked his head.   
  
“Because he doesn’t talk, does he, not in the films at any rate,” Rose added. “It’d be odd him having a voice all of a sudden.”  
  
“Dunno,” Tommy said with a shrug. “I don’t think it was. Just a man, talking at a party.”  
  
Rose rolled her eyes.   
  
“Just a man, talkin’ at a party,” she echoed. “Adventure is wasted on you.”  
  
He smiled and stubbed out his cigarette.   
  
“Good thing, I’ve you to appreciate it for me then.” He came over and offered her a hand up. “Let’s have our dinner, eh?”  
  
Rose opened her mouth to answer, but a lump came out of nowhere and choked her. The thought of leaving the shed, fuck, it was almost too sad to bear. Everything inside her wanted to beg to just stay, the two of them, encased in corrugated iron and wood like hidden treasures in a child’s secret hiding place, until whatever business was going on outside was done.   
  
Instead she nodded, quickly turned, and ripped to door open like she was taking off a bandage. The night was dark and damp and unkind, but there was a glow from the fire and the rumble of Johnny Dogs complaining to Charlie and the smell of dinner; more than enough tiny bits of silver to make her feet step out and keep going.

#

  
  
They ate in silence, keeping the returning rain at bay with the tin roof above and the darkness away with the fire between them. Rose was so intent on inhaling the wild mush of meat and potatoes and things that grew by the roadside, she didn’t notice the deep thrum of contentment inside her until she was halfway through her bowl. Then though, fucking hell, it disabled her, made all further movement impossible, rendered her slack with comfort.   
  
“_Kekka bocklo_?” Johnny Dogs asked.   
  
Rose couldn’t shake or nod her head, all she could do was sit there, with her bowl on her lap and a spreading grin on her face.   
  
“What?” Her father’s spoon lowered and his eyes narrowed.   
  
“Choking, eh?” Her uncle Charlie shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Eats too fast, this one.”  
  
“ ‘cause it’s good, that’s why,” Johnny Dogs grumbled.   
  
“It’s not _that _good,” Tommy said evenly.  
  
“It’s me grandmother’s recipe, you ungrateful bastard-“ Johnny Dogs was eyeballing Tommy like her was about ready to have a go “- and it would make the fuckin’ gods weep   
with joy, even a tiny taste of it.”  
  
“The _puridaya _Dogs, eh?” Tommy stirred his bowl.  
  
“Ah, fuck me, here we go…” Charlie muttered, crossing his arms like a man settling down to watch a match.   
  
“Yea,” Johnny Dogs said. “Passed down through the generations for the benefit of humanity and all-“  
  
“Ah, yea, I remember…” Tommy lifted another spoonful to his mouth and chewed slowly, making them wait, all three of them watching him now, “…gave it to the old man, as   
well. Made our mum cook it every day for years.”  
  
“I’ll be the last to say a good word ‘bout your old man,” Johnny Dogs said. “But he knew his grub, I give him that.”  
  
“You know, really doesn’t taste so different from how we used to get, this” Tommy said. “Know it off by heart, eh? The _recipe_.”  
  
Johnny Dogs nodded, but his eyes narrowed suspiciously.   
  
“See, that’s lovely,” Tommy said, every syllable swinging with appreciation. “Keeping tradition alive, you are. Keeping the old ways for the new generation…”  
  
“Yea, well, it’s more than you’ve ever done for the poor girl,” Johnny Dogs said sourly. “Eh, Rosie? Putting her in a house and makin’ her wear shoes all year round, learning bloody Latin. Squeezing the gypsy out of her like she’s a fuckin’ lemon…”  
  
Rose was too entranced to respond. It was like being at the pictures; like they were doing a play about what things might have been like.   
  
“Fair cop…” Tommy held his hands up in surrender. “Orright, Rosie, sit up and listen.”  
  
He’d had her full attention before, but now Rose was fairly hanging off his lips.   
  
“Lay off…” Uncle Charlie sighed in the background.  
  
“What?” Tommy asked. “Can’t hurt her to know how to make a bit of scran. Right. D’you’ve a pen, Rosie?”  
  
She shook her head and her father shrugged.  
  
“I s’pose it’s simple enough to remember,” he said.   
  
“Oh, is it now-“ Johnny Dogs started.  
  
“What you do-“ Tommy went on, looking straight at Rose “- is this. You walk round til you find…something…anything really. A lost potato. Dead beasts. Sticks. Anything. And then you scrape it off the road and boil it til it’s soft.”  
  
Johnny Dogs threw his hands up, scowling for the world record.  
  
“Fuck right o-“  
  
“And,” Tommy interrupted, “if you want to be fancy, and there’s a stream nearby or a puddle, you can rinse it a bit before it goes in the pot.”  
  
He was looking at her, her father, waiting. For a laugh. He was trying to maker her laugh. Slagging Johnny Dogs, looking twenty years younger at least, possibly a hundred.   
  
“Is that all?” Rose asked.   
  
“Give or take a couple of dried bits of grass.”  
  
“That’s amazin’,” she said in wonder.   
  
Her words hung in the air above the fire for a little while, turning in the glow, spreading out over them.   
  
“Why’s that?” Tommy asked finally.   
  
“ ‘cause it’s still so much fuckin’ better than the candied anteaters and fried cherry-blossoms they make us at the big house.”  
  
Johnny Dogs laughed so hard, he dropped his bowl. Uncle Charlie rolled his eyes, but Rose caught the trace of a smirk under the shadow of his cap.   
  
“You’re an uncultured pain in the arse,” her father said wearily.   
  
“ ‘cause I’d rather food fit for human consumption?”  
  
“No,” he said. “ ‘cause it wasn’t a bloody anteater, chavi, it was an aardvark. And it wasn’t candied, it was glazed.”  
  
It took all Rose had to keep her face straight and the bubbling hysterics from bursting upwards.   
  
“You’d do well to pay a bit of attention,” her father said. 

“I try,” she groaned. “But the monkey waiters are distracting, they really are…”  
  
“They’re apes,” Tommy said with a shake of the head. “Glad the school fee’s not wasted on you-“  
  
Rose’s face slipped and giggles started to shake her; tears of laughter started to blur her vision, but she could still make out the unfamiliar grin on her father’s face.   
  
“Orright, Gallagher and bloody Shean,” Uncle Charlie said with a sigh. “Christ, the pair of you…”  
  
Behind them, in the toolshed, Barney started up again and they could hear Curly’s stuttered pleas for calm. Tommy put his bowl on the ground and stood.   
  
“I’ll see to it,” he said. “You find our Rosie a bed somewhere, eh?”  
  
Rose made to get up, but he pushed her back down into the chair, a hand on her shoulder, his mouth close to her ear.   
  
“How’s that for a lovely memory of a terrible time?” he asked in a low voice.  
  
He was gone before she could think of anything, before she could even think to give him as much as a thank you. Left her by the fire side, buzzing with the left-over glee and an uneasy rasp inside her ribs. She’d forgotten, only for a bit, but she’d forgotten nonetheless. Perhaps she’d a little magic left after all. Perhaps her father did, as well. Perhaps, there wasn’t any harm in hoping. At least a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kekka bocklo? - Not hungry?  
Puridaia - Grandmother


	36. Fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took an age. It grew enormous. But here it is...as good as it's likely to get. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

  


Perhaps they’d taken the lid of the secret jar holding all the left-over magic when they entered the graveyard; perhaps something had become dislodged and the magic was wafting all over the place like factory smoke. It made Rose sleep despite the grating thoughts of the day to come and gave her dreams of sliced tomatoes and an old man’s giant fingers dancing in the air above. And then, when she woke up, blinking at the mid-morning light coming through the grimy window, the magic was still strong enough to allow her a whole five heartbeats before the day and all it might bring came crashing down over her. A whole five heartbeats when Rose’s day held nothing but the possibility of adventure and beauty.  
  
There was the crack of a gunshot outside.  
  
Rose stumbled out of bed and shed, her socks immediately drenched, and scanned the yard for the source of gunfire. She found them round the back – her uncle Arthur, Johnny Dogs, her father and Barney – as well as a target so neatly hit, it made her think that perhaps Barney had more magic than all the small children of Birmingham put together.  
  
“Morning,” Rose called out croakily.  
  
“Morning, little Sergeant Major,” Barney waved with a great deal of enthusiasm.  
  
Arthur gave her a grunt and nod as she came closer, Johnny Dogs was too busy examining the target up close, and her father…well.  
  
Rose wasn’t sure what she’d been planning on doing, but she’d made a beeline for Tommy before thinking about it; she’d not noticed the change until it was too late to change her trajectory and all there was left to do was come to an awkward stop a few steps away.  
  
He was clean shaven, in a fresh suit that looked good enough to be brand new, his boots absurdly polished against the rough ground of the shipyard; and a face on him that might as well have been painted on.  
  
A thousand lifetimes ago, when her father lived in the silver frame on her bedside table and in Charlie’s stories of a strange and clever boy, they’d torn down a house at the top of Marshwood Croft. When Rose walked by with Polly on Wednesday morning on their way to the shop it was there and when they came the same way on Thursday, it wasn’t. Not a trace of it. Not a pile of rubble, not a splinter of doorframe, just nothing. Rose remembered staring at the empty square of dirt, like a sea of nothing separating the two houses either side, unable to wrap her head around such a thing being possible. She remembered thinking that maybe she’d imagined the house all along, that it had never been there in the first place.  
  
Now, with Tommy looking at her through the smoke of his cigarette, his expression void of anything at all, Rose suddenly wasn’t sure that the previous evening had happened at all. Perhaps she’d had too much of the bottled dragon, perhaps it had given her dreams to be shattered in the morning, playing the long game to get its ration of sorrow. If it hadn’t been for the man’s clothes she’d woken up in, she’d have been convinced it was so.  
  
Rose eyed her father uncertainly, feeling exposed and invisible all at once. There was a moment, almost too brief to deserve the name, when his mouth twitched and her ears pricked up even though she knew he wasn’t going to say anything.  
  
And he didn’t; he marched himself over to Barney instead, clapped him on the shoulder, eliciting a shaky grin. He was like a St. Bernard, Barney, or some other big, lumbering, stupidly loyal dog; Rose half expected him to start drooling. Tommy reached into his pocket and Rose caught a flash of blue glass.  
  
An acid coating of panic started to peel away the innermost layers of her guts and in a desperate effort to keep it at bay, Rose turned and squinted at the faraway target. Barney wasn’t right in the head. They had literally sprung him from the nuthouse. Barney lived in fear of being dobbed on by fucking mice and now her father was letting him play in the snow…but if he could shoot like that, if that hadn’t been a fluke…  
Hope sputtered back to life inside her, like a dying donkey doggedly trudging on at the sight of a limp carrot. Behind her a small lorry came rumbling into the shipyard.  
  
Tommy hauled Barney to his feet and turned him to face the vehicle. They were going, Rose realised with a start, they were fucking going. It left her at a complete loss of what to do; she didn’t even have her fuckin’ shoes on for fuck’s sake.  
  
She took an unsteady step forward and, as if to ram home the fact that she was in socks – and not even her own bloody socks -, put her foot down on something hard, sharp and painful.  
  
“Fuck-“  
  
It was ridiculous. It was like the bloody spirit world was bashing her over the head with the fact that getting too close to her father, running after him, trying to stay with him, was a painful endeavor at best. Then again, perhaps she should have just heeded his lectures about having the decency to wear the sort of shoes he’d spent his childhood longing for.  
  
Rose lifted her foot and watched a shard of green glass cling to the filthy wool for a moment before dropping to the ground. She was balancing on one leg precariously, trying to assess the damage. It didn’t feel like she’d cut herself, not deeply at any rate, but the sock was so dirty it was impossible to tell whether the glass had gone all the way through.  
There was a hand on her elbow and then Tommy was pulling her along, making her hop beside him, dumping her into a chair by the smoldering remains of last night’s fire.  
  
“Can I come?” Rose asked. “To Bingley Hall?”  
  
“No.” He lit a cigarette and looked over at Barney, who was rooted to the spot where Tommy had abandoned him, like a forgotten suitcase. “Lock and load, soldier,” he called out, startling Barney into motion, “-you’re in the back with Aberama.”  
  
“I-“  
  
Tommy turned back to Rose and the look on his face was enough to shut her up for days.  
  
“The driver’s coming for you,” he announced, digging a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and holding it out to her. “You give this to Lizzie. Tell her congratulations on the promotion.”  
  
She took the note, put it into the deep pocket of her uncle Charlie’s trousers, trying to keep her face under control and failing miserably.  
  
“What?” her father asked tiredly.  
  
“Mister Mosley…” Rose swallowed down the gritty mixture of fear and excitement coating her throat, “…I want to watch.”  
  
“You’ve seen him speak,” Tommy dismissed her, already turning away.  
  
“No,” Rose said. “I want to watch him die.”  
  
He stopped. Rose could see the tension in the back of his neck, an iron fist grabbing him, dragging him off to somewhere dark and cold.  
  
“You can’t.” He didn’t turn to look at her. “You can’t be there. I can’t be-“ he cleared his throat “- I can’t have you on my mind. You’re going home.”  
  
Rose chewed her lip in silence and, with no warning at all, he spun around and grabbed her by the front of her jumper, hauling her to her feet.  
  
“I fuckin’ mean it,” he growled, his face so close it was blurring. “No sneakin’ off and coming after us. D’you understand me?”  
  
“Yea,” Rose croaked.  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
He pulled her into his chest, his free arm pressing her to him for a moment, before he pushed her away hard enough to make her loose her footing for a moment. By the time she’d recovered her balance, he was already halfway to the car.  
  
“_Baksheesh_,” Rose called after him.  
  
Her father marched on, got into the car and ten seconds later the lorry rumbled off towards Bingley hall, full of gypsies, assassins and mad men.  
  
Curly appeared by her side, nudging her softly.  
  
“Are you not goin’ either?” Rose asked.  
  
“Nah,” Curly said with a smile. “Too many people.”  
  
“What’re you doing then?”  
  
“Givin’ Charlie a hand taking the boat down river.”  
  
Rose frowned up at him.  
  
“What’s on the boat?” she asked.  
  
“Seven tons of opium.”  
  
Rose closed her eyes for a moment, watching the swirls of chaos dancing in the dark.  
  
“Well, fuckin’ _baksheesh_ to you as well then, eh, Curly?”  
  
“Thanks, beetle.”  
  
As Rose walked off to find her boots, the note rustling in her pocket, the drizzle soaking into her shoulders, something exactly half-way between laughter and sobs was forcing its way out of her chest. Fuck it. It’d be orright. At least he was sending the boatload of dragons away, that was as good a start as any.

#

  
She found her boots and her father’s filthy graveyard coat in the living shed, and was out and ready to meet the driver when he pulled up by the gate. The coat smelled of smoke and dirt and, when Rose closed her eyes and summoned the picture of her young, unbroken parents, it was almost possible to imagine them on either side of her.  
  
She opened her eyes, returned to the world and shoved her hands in her pockets. Her left hand closed around the straight razor, the right around a small bottle. So, yea, she wasn’t alone after all. There was comfort on either side, as much as she was going to get.  
  
Rose climbed into the back, wrapped the coat around her and, when she was certain the driver had his eyes on the road, the unscrewed the bottle and sipped. It wouldn’t hurt to blur the edges a little.

#

Lizzie read the note with a growing look of consternation, reading it more than once by the looks of it, until she turned to Rose, her face one big question mark.  
  
“Congratulations on your promotion,” Rose recited dutifully.  
  
She’d had another taste of the dragon only ten miles or so ago, and she was feeling rather good about things. It was only a few more hours until the state of emergency would come to an end and then...then they’d go to see her mum again. Have a proper chat about things. Come up with a plan. It’d be good. It made Rose smile just thinking about it now.  
  
“Are you orright?” Lizzie asked.  
  
“Fine, yea,” Rose said.  
  
There was something decidedly suspicious in Lizzie’s eyes now, zeroing in on her, searching. Rose willed her own eyes to keep from wandering, but the light in the room was beautiful and golden and made her want to look everywhere all at once.  
  
“Right…” Lizzie didn’t sound at all convinced. “I’ve to make a call…fuck…d’you know where-“  
  
“At the hall,” Rose said. “I think so anyway. You might catch Finn at the office, but. Get him to run a message.”  
  
“Ah, fuck it,” Lizzie sighed. “I might just-“  
  
The door burst open and Lizzie broke off as Ruby came charging into the room.  
  
“Where have you been?” she demanded, hands on hips and staring Rose down.  
  
“Out?” Rose offered lamely.  
  
“Where did you sleep?”  
  
“Shipyard.”  
  
Ruby threw her hands up and turned on Lizzie.  
  
“Why’s Rosie get to-“  
  
“Stop,” Lizzie interrupted wearily. “Just…not now, orright, sweetheart? Mummy’s got things on her mind.”  
  
“What things?” Ruby asked.  
  
“Yea,” Rose chimed in. “What did it actually say?”  
  
“Didn’t you read it?” Lizzie stared at Rose like she’d just grown a pair of antlers.  
  
“ ‘course not,” she said. “It was for you.”  
  
Lizzie shook her head, her eyes darting towards Ruby for a fraction of a second.  
  
“Mummy. What-“  
  
“D’you want to go find Charlie, Rubes?” Rose interrupted.  
  
“Why?” Ruby grumbled.  
  
“Because yous didn’t get a story last night, did you,” Rose said. “I tell you one now, if you find him and you two beat me to my room.”  
  
“What story?” Ruby asked, sounding rather tempted.  
  
“A very good one. The best one I have.”  
  
It was clear that Ruby was onto Rose’s scheme. She was being sent on a mission so she’d miss the interesting part of the conversation – but, thankfully, Rubes just couldn’t say no to the prospect of a story; so, she dashed off to hunt down Charlie without another word.  
  
“What-“ Rose started as soon as they could hear Ruby trampling up the stairs.  
  
“Pol’s resigned,” Lizzie said quietly.  
  
“What the fuck’s that mean?” Rose shook her head to clear an odd buzzing noise from her ears. “Resigned from what?”  
  
“From her position in the company.”  
  
“She can’t do that…” Rose very nearly laughed, the notion was just too ridiculous. “She might as well try an resign from the family, she-“  
  
“Did something happen at the meeting, Rosie?” Lizzie asked.  
  
“Dunno. Missed it.”  
  
Lizzie sighed.  
  
“Was your father…did he seem upset?”  
  
“_Upset_?” Rose repeated.  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
It wasn’t an easy question, it really wasn’t. He hadn’t mentioned Polly, he’d been too busy – drugging Barney, beating and cutting pissed strangers on the street, kneeling in the graveyard with his face in the dirt…crying…possibly crying…talking to the dead and sipping opium like some sort of demented clockwork…  
  
Rose thought she might be sick.  
  
He'd had ten years to take her to her mother’s grave, it wasn’t like he’d only come home last week, and yet it hadn’t occurred to her until this moment to wonder why he’d  
chosen the previous evening over every other evening to do so. Why it was important for her to know where to find her mother _now._ Why-  
  
Fuck it. He’d promised. He’d promised they’d go back and finish their business.  
  
“He was orright,” Rose announced, backing towards the door. “Better go tell the runts a story, eh?”  
  
She slipped from the room – she could practically hear Lizzie throw her hands up behind her – and made for the stairs, taking a stealthy sip on the seventh step for good luck. It wasn’t a tried and true superstition, she’d made it up on the spot, but it did calm her down a great deal and they were, after all, in a state of emergency.

#

  
“Start!” Ruby commanded before Rose had even properly entered her room.  
  
“Keep your hair on…”  
  
“Are you orright?” Charlie asked, looking at her strangely.  
  
“I am, yea…” Rose made it to the bed and dropped down so heavily, she made it creak. “I’m just a bit tired…”  
  
She closed her eyes and was met with a firework display that was as dazzling as it was disconcerting.  
  
“Start,” Ruby repeated mercilessly.  
  
Rose forced her lids open, feeling them scratch over her eyeballs, taking whatever moisture was left with them.  
  
“When the grown-ups were all busy…” Ruby prompted.  
  
“Ah, no,” Rose said, pushing herself up until she was sitting against the headboard. “This is a story about after.”  
  
“But-“  
  
“So,” Rose interrupted. “They used to go to fairs, our da and the uncles. They’d sell the horses that weren’t any good for the track and bring back new ones that looked a bit  
promising. And sometimes, most times, our uncle Arthur and our uncle John would have a go at the boxing.”  
  
“Did our dad, as well?” Charlie asked.  
  
“Nah,” Rose shook her head. “_Fighting’s something you want to do properly-_“ Ruby and Charlie both giggled as she put on her best Tommy voice “_\- a fight with rules may as  
well be a fuckin’ dance._ He didn’t even like watching the fighting very much, but he did watch the racing. Because, see, at the fairs, at the good ones at any rate, they’ve horse racing as well. Not on a track, but just round a field or through a wood or whatever’s around.”  
  
Rose slid her hand into her pocket and felt for the dragon bottle. She could smell the faintest aroma of game on a spit, thought there was a trace of a horse’s whinny in the room. Another tiny sip might let the fair erupt into the room.  
  
“What’s that?” Ruby asked.  
  
“Nothin’.”  
  
“Can I have some?”  
  
“No.” Rose replaced the lid on the bottle and put it back into her father’s coat. “Now. Where was I?”  
  
“Horse racing,” Charlie said without missing a beat.  
  
“That’s right.” Rose smiled. “So. When I was eight, we went to the spring fair in Buttonoak.”  
  
“Just you and dad?” Charlie asked.  
  
“Fuck no,” Rose said. “Uncle John came as well, with auntie Esme and all of the cousins and Finn and Iz – the whole tray of the car was rammed with kids rolling about every time we went round a corner. It was great.”  
  
“Where was I?” Ruby asked.  
  
“You weren’t even thought of.”  
  
“Where was Charlie?”  
  
“Home with Grace,” Rose said. “He was only a baby and Grace didn’t care for the fairs, so they stayed here.”  
  
“You didn’t like me.”  
  
Rose looked over at her brother and tried to remember what it had been like not to like him.  
  
“True,” she said after a while. “But I didn’t know you yet, did I. Sometimes…” the light from the bedside lamp was giving Charlie a halo and for a moment Rose was distracted by an image of Grace coming down from the heavens with a golden haired halo of her own to smite her for getting off her face in front of the children “…sometime you’ve got to get to know people, before you can like them. And it’s nothing to do with the story, at any rate.”  
  
“Go on,” Charlie said generously.  
  
“Now, you won’t remember our cousin John-the-second,” Rose went on. “They all went off on the road years ago, but he was a mad bastard, even when he was little. Would do anything for a dare and absolutely anything at all for a laugh. And the first thing he did when we got to Buttonoak, without me knowing, was to put me name in the racing box.”  
  
“What’s a racing box?” Ruby asked.  
  
“Shut up and I’ll tell you,” Rose said with a sigh. “See, it wasn’t very big, the fair at Buttonoak, didn’t even have a proper boxing booth. But what it did have was the river races.” Rose was feeling a bit woozy now, the rushing of the River Severn in her ears and in between. “They’d walk a bunch of horses a couple of miles up the river and anyone, who wanted to have a crack at the racing could put their name in a box and they’d draw them out over the course of the day. They’d take the riders up to the horses and they’d race back to the site. It was tricky ground along the river and there were fences in the way and all sorts, so you could never even be sure all the riders would make it back in one piece. And at the end of the day all the winners from all the races would have the grand final.”  
  
The faint sound of Lizzie shouting down the phone in the study down the hall drifted through the open door. Everyone in the bed pricked up their ears for a moment, but there was no making out any actual words.  
  
“They didn’t call me up til the second to last race,” Rose continued, wondering if it was worth getting up to shut the door. “It was well into the afternoon, we were sitting up on a fence by the auction pen, John-the-second and meself, gorging ourselves on nuts and burnt sugar, and the fella up on the block yells out: _Shelby! Rosie Shelby!_ And then he just goes on to the next name. Fuckin’ hell, I nearly choked. So did John-the-second, to be fair, he was laughing so hard he swallowed a nut whole. Fell off the fence and everything and then the cheeky fucker grins up at me and goes: _You’re too scared to do it…_ in that sort of sing-song, you know?”  
  
Charlie and Ruby nodded gravely.  
  
“So then, of course, I had to do it. Even if he was right.” The hair on Rose’s arms stood on end at the memory of it. “They’d take the riders up to the starting line in a cart, you see, and I half expected them to turn me back when I tried to get on, maybe I was even hoping they would. But they didn’t. They had a good laugh at me when I gave them my name, but they let me get on; because anyone can have a go at the river races. Anyone at all. And then, as we’re rolling out, I can see our da taking with some fella with a pig under one arm and a goose under the other. Talking and smoking and – I’ll never forget for as long as I live – when he sees me, because of course he does, we’re being driven right past him, his jaw doesn’t quite drop, but the cigarette falls out of his mouth and it lands on the pig’s snout. And the pig loses its shite. Kicks and screams and the fella drops it and starts shouting and then we were off and out of sight.”  
  
Rose closed her eyes and felt the cart rumble beneath her, remembered the faces of the men and boys around her, the last of the day’s warmth on her face.  
  
“When we get to the starting line, they put me up on the smallest horse they’ve got, but he’s still not little, not really. They’ve to lift me and everyone’s laughing, but this is when I clue in that – because it's so late in the day already – almost all the lads about to race are either half cut or well pissed. And we’re riding right into the sunset, so it’s hard enough to see where you’re goin’ even when you’re sober. And I start to feel a bit lucky. And then, once the starter gun goes and the horse is off, it’s clear that, yea, I’m very lucky indeed. Because the horse doesn’t even need me to do anything. It’s done the trip twice or more already that day and it knows every twist and turn and obstacle. All I’ve got to do is stay on.”  
  
“Did you?”  
  
“I did, yea,” Rose said dreamily. “There was a fella ahead of me, at the very start, but he got taken out by a low branch. And there was a lad next to me a little bit later on, but he  
lost his grip and slipped off when we went over a broken bit of fence.”  
  
“Did you win?” Charlie asked breathlessly.  
  
“Yea.”

“Really?” Ruby squealed.  
  
“I did,” Rose said. “And by a good length, too, if our Finn’s to be believed. He was standing on the fence, shouting his head off, I could hear him before I could see him. John-the-second as well and uncle John. And our da. He wasn’t shouting though, he was just there when I got down off the horse and he’s going: _Bloody hell, Rosie, bloody hell…_”  
  
“Was he mad?”  
  
“I thought he might be,” Rose admitted. “Because…you know…it’s hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it. So, there’s me starting with _I weren’t my idea, I didn’t do it…_ But before I get anywhere, the fella from the podium’s there with us and he tells me _Back on the cart, retchka, winners’ cup’s next if you’re up for it._”  
  
She paused, her heart beating like she’d only just ridden the race.  
  
“The fella walks off. But, see, the thing is, I’m not so sure I’m up for it, not really. So, I ask our da, I ask him: _Should I?_ And he says: _I don’t rate your chances. There’s no shame in quitting while you’re ahead, chavi, it’s the smart thing to do._ And I’m there, chewing me lip to bits, watching the winners of all the other races make their way to the cart, and I ask him: _Would it be very stupid to go again?_ And he says: _It would be, yea…_ but then he smiles, he really, really smiles and he goes: _You want to, eh? Be stupid and go for the glory? _I barely manage to nod and he puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me_: Off you go then, but no fuckin’ about, orright? In for a penny, in for a pound._”  
  
“And did you?”  
  
“I did, yea,” Rose said. “I got back on the bloody cart and I went again.”  
  
“And did you win?”  
  
“No…” Rose shook her head, smiling. “I came in second to last.”  
  
“Ah, no…” Charlie groaned. “What’d our dad say?”  
  
“Nothin’,” Rose said. “I was so embarrassed, I ran off. Hid in the back of the car and pretended to be asleep when it was time to go.”  
  
She opened her eyes and found Ruby and Charlie frowning at her.  
  
“That’s a horrible story,” Ruby announced.  
  
“I was so mortified,” Rose went on, “I kept pretending to be asleep all the way back here and then, when it was time to get out, I still just kept my eyes closed, hoping he’d just leave me in the car for the night.”  
  
“Did he?”  
  
“No…” a scratch stole into Rose’s voice “…no, he didn’t. Didn’t wake me up either. He brought me up to bed, carried me, took me boots of and everything and then, just before he went out, he put his hand on my head and said really, really, quietly, in a whisper, really…he said: _Gutsy effort._”  
  
“And then?”  
  
Rose looked at Charlie, then Ruby and was met with even deeper frowns than before.  
  
“What d’you mean?” she asked.  
  
“Is that it?”  
  
“Yea…” Rose cocked her head, utterly confused. She was still wrapped up in the loveliness of what was probably the happiest memory she had, but her siblings’ lack of appreciation was scraping through her joy like nails down a chalkboard.  
  
“Strange story,” Ruby announced.  
  
“Strange how?” Rose asked.  
  
“Strange like you and daddy.”  
  
“I liked the bit about the racing though,” Charlie offered.  
  
“Yea, that was good,” Ruby agreed.  
  
With tremendous effort, Rose swung her legs out of bed, sat up straight and pointed to the door.  
  
“Go annoy someone else,” she ordered.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“ ‘cause you don’t appreciate the small things,” Rose snapped. “Now fuckin’ nash.”  
  
They nashed and Rose, every bone weighing as much as a new foal, fell back into bed and fast asleep before she’d time to try and stay awake.

#

  
She shot up from a strange and dreamless sleep, to a dark room and a pounding heart. Fuck. It’d to be over by now and she’d bloody missed it. She nearly fell over when she got up too fast and stumbled towards the sitting room. She could hear the radio crackling away, the static announcement of the evening’s news.  
  
Lizzie was on the sofa, sitting ramrod straight, the knuckle of her right index finger pressed to her mouth like she was about to bite it. She looked so forlorn, it made Rose’s knees weak. She only just managed to grab onto the doorframe, might have fallen on her face otherwise.  
  
“What?” Rose croaked.  
  
Slowly, very slowly, Lizzie turned, her face so pale it made her eyes look black and bottomless.  
  
“Nothin’,” she whispered.  
  
“What?” Rose repeated.  
  
“There was nothin’…” Lizzie reached out and turned the radio off.  
  
It took a little while for it to sink in, there wasn’t enough room in Rose to accommodate the hugeness of this particular nothing. When it finally did make its way in, it floored her. She slid down along the doorframe until she was sitting on the ground.  
  
“Maybe they don’t know yet?”  
  
“Don’t be stupid,” Lizzie said roughly. “They’d know. If it’d happened, they’d bloody know…ah…ah, fuck…”  
  
“What-“  
  
“I don’t know,” Lizzie cut her off. “I don’t fuckin’ know, Rose, orright?”  
  
Bits of Rose, her earlobes, her fingers, the pit of her stomach, started to fizz like malfunctioning fireworks. He’d promised. One dragon at a time. It wasn’t supposed to go wrong on the first one.  
  
Lizzie was up and over by the phone now, trying to light a cigarette with a shaky free hand. Rose willed herself upwards, climbing the doorframe like a tree, her eyes darting to the window on their own accord.  
  
He’d come.  
  
There were whispering dragons perching on Rose’s shoulder now, trying to convince her otherwise, and huge dragons inside her, flapping their mighty wings to make her weak; but he’d come.  
  
She’d just have to wait a bit. He’d come.  
  


#

She settled on the sill of the large front facing window and closed the curtains behind her. The glass was cool against her temple and the little bottle was numbing her lips and heart. She could wait like this forever. He’d come.

Darkness fell and Rose watched the shadows of birds and dragons race across the slim slice of moonlight travelling over the drive.

#

  


There wasn’t enough left in the little bottle to blur the edges; or maybe everything had become so blurred already that no further solace was to be had. The sun came up, stark and grey and without warmth. And then the fog came.  
  
Her legs had long gone dead and her vision was blurring as she stared out into the advancing ground clouds, wondering whether it really was fog or the dead rising from the ground or steam from the nostrils of a dragon large enough to end the world. Maybe it was coming up over the fields, dragging talons through the furrows on either side, feet shaking the ground and sending rabbits running and dogs frantic. Its stomach growling and every breath it drew sucking a soul or two down into fiery oblivion.  
  
There were eyes glowing in the distance…  
  
Rose sat up straight, shook her head, squinted.  
  
The glowing eyes remained, coming closer.  
  
She jumped off the sill, got tangled in the curtains; her numb legs gave way and she slammed into the wall, knocking her head so hard she saw stars. Fuck…  
  
Rose stumbled along the hallway, holding on to the stupid little tables and pillars with vases of unappreciated flowers, until she half-ran, half-fell into her bedroom. Pol’s gun was still in the bedside drawer, hidden at the very back, behind crumpled bits of paper and loose change and a fistful of hair pins.  
  
Feeling was returning to Rose’s legs as she flew down the stairs, taking three at a time, making her strides sure and determined. She’d slay the fuckin’ thing. She didn’t have a blade, but that was fine; surely a bullet to the soft spot (_…just above the shoulder joint…_) would do the job just as well.  
  
She tightened her hold on the gun, crept up to the window by the door and froze.  
  
Because it wasn’t a dragon, of course it wasn’t, it was a car.  
  
He’d come.  
  
Every bit of Rose, inside and out, went weak. Like she’d been held underwater to the point of seeing stars and was finally allowed up to take a breath. She heaved such a deep, deep sigh of relief it fogged up the window. Gently, she wiped at it with her sleeve and watched her father and her uncle Arthur get out of the car. They didn’t look none too happy, not even from a distance, but they were living and breathing and in the drive and that was almost more than Rose’s heart could take.  
  
It didn’t matter that Barney had missed. It didn’t matter that Mister Mosley got to spew his shite into the world for another day, not to Rose at any rate.  
  
Her father turned and started walking. Away.  
  
Her heart stopped.  
  
He was walking away into the early morning and the clouds, each strider longer than the next, just a couple of paces from running.  
  
By the time her heart started again, Rose was through the door and down the front steps, spraying gravel behind her as she sprinted towards the car. He was barely out through the gate, she could see him, framed by the bits of wall, the fog licking at his sleeves. She’d catch up. Grab him. Wind herself round his ankles to stop him from taking another step.  
  
There were hands on her shoulder and the wall of her uncle Arthur’s very best suit, the one he wore only for weddings and assassinations.  
  
“Move!” Rose roared.  
  
“Rosie-“  
  
She brought up the gun and pressed it against his white shirt front.  
  
“_Right fuckin’ now_,” she shrieked in a voice she’d never heard before.  
  
Her uncle’s face crumpled so suddenly, that for a moment Rose wasn’t sure whether she hadn’t shot him without meaning to, but then he stepped aside and she ran at the empty whiteness ahead.  
  
She’d find him. He couldn’t have gone far.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
Rose charged onwards, hair whipping against her face, the wet of the fog turning to ice on her cheeks.  
  
“I’m coming!”  
  
It’d be orright. She’d find him. She gripped the gun tighter and sped up.  
  
“Don’t go without me!”  
  
She’d find him. In the fog or on the other side, but she’d find him.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
There was a roar somewhere ahead of her; and even running, her thumb found the hammer and drew it back until a small click vibrated through her palm.  
  
“Don’t go without me!”  
  
She’d find him. He wasn't fuckin' leaving her behind again. She'd follow, no matter where he decided to go, she'd follow and she'd find him. Tell him he'd put in a gutsy effort and that she was proud of him, even if he'd failed. And then he’d pick her up and swing her round no matter how big she’d gotten.   
  
“I’m coming…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all you fabulous legends, who came along for the ride: Thank you! It's been fun (well, an angsty, brutal, deeply saddening version thereof at any rate) and a privilege to share my little story with readers as kind and thoughtful as you folk. Hip hip hooray - til next time. xo


End file.
